Nota Bene

Last month was a great month for K-intellectual property. So nice to get such good news to brighten up dull, damp, dreary March days.

But we’ve had other great months IP-wise of late too…

In September of last year, for the second year in a row we were included in the Derwent Top 100 Global Innovators listing, making us the first – and only – Russian company to get onto this meticulously researched list of the world’s 100 most innovative organizations! Hurray!

A few details about this top-100: Every year the independent U.S. company Clarivate Analytics chooses its most innovational companies in the world based on the quality of their patent portfolios. In particular, Clarivate selects its top-100 based on the following four criteria:

1. How successful a company is with its patent applications in actually being granted patents;
2. How global a company’s innovations are;
3. How often a company’s patents are cited elsewhere (in applications of other IT companies); and
4. The total number of patents a company has.

This year eight IT players made the list: Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Symantec, Tencent and us! Nice to be rubbing shoulders with such worthy contemporaries!

Now for an update to the numbers of our IP team, who never cease to amaze with their hard work and successful results: Our patent practice was established back in 2005; since then our patent portfolio has grown from 0 to 930+ patents obtained in Russia, the U.S., Europe, China and Japan! Besides, we have more than 500 patent applications pending; we’ve won nine court cases, two are ongoing, and we’ve lost none!

In short, we continue to fight – and beat – patent trolls. Trolls – take note!

That’s all for today folks. See you again tomorrow!…

On my visit to Victoria Falls, the icing on the cake was the helicopter flight we took above them.

In this first pic – you see the ‘smoke’ rising up over there? That’s the ‘smoke’ from the waterfall. And that’s where we were headed in the chopper…

Read on…

Across desolate desert we drove, down Skeleton Coast we cruised, over dusty dunes we danced. All a bit… dry. It was time for something very wet. And it can’t get much wetter than the Victoria Falls in Southern Africa, so that’s just where we were headed next – on the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Victoria Falls aren’t the largest or tallest waterfalls in the world. Nor are they the most powerful in terms of flow rate. However, they do come out the clear winner in another category – the area of the falling water: around 1.8km at ~100+ meters. Which adds up to a most grandiose body of falling water – especially when the level of the Zambezi River is high during rain season. Meanwhile the mid-level water looks like this:

Read on…

I couldn’t help but notice the buzz our latest patent news had gotten about our patent lawyers’ amazing win :). So I’m excited to keep the ball rolling with news of another bombshell victory just a few days later…

We reign victorious in a very important patent lawsuit again! This time against Uniloc (the same Uniloc that managed to snake $388 mln from Microsoft). You should know they sued us over the same patent in 2018, but we came out on top.

Recently, during the negotiation process of yet another patent infringement lawsuit filed by Uniloc, we received a message from the company’s representatives that they’re tired of fighting and ready to end this. Meaning: they’re ready to drop the suit if we are. Of course we were, only without the red tape and within the hour. So we drafted a joint statement on the spot for ‘dismissal with prejudice’, which is a final judgement meaning the case is not subject to further action.

Now to get down to brass tacks…

According to Uniloc, the software license and settings management software used in our My Kaspersky license manager was ‘stepping on the toes’ of other patents. My Kaspersky is a web service to remotely renew subscriptions, launch scans, get product reports, and do all sorts of other useful stuff.

Below is a list of the patents containing descriptions of configurable settings for authorized users. The general idea is that a user with several devices who configures their settings on one can then open the product on another and the settings are already saved. All of these patents (with a priority date of 1998) were acquired from IBM. They had 31 respondents, including Akamai, SAP (represented by subsidiary Concur Technologies), Oracle (represented by subsidiary Netsuite), Ubisoft, Tencent (represented by subsidiary Riot Games), and Zendesk.

US6324578
US7069293
US6510466
US6728766

Expert analysis put our potential damages at $7 million, assuming a claim amount of $90 million.

This was a long-haul case starting back in 2016, but it was temporarily put on hold because the patents in one of the claims processes started before us were invalidated. A year later, the United States District Court of Texas confirmed the invalidation of two patents: `766 and `466, but upheld `578 and `293. Regardless, this was still a win for us, even if we were only involved indirectly. It’s important to understand that when patents ‘survive’ the court of appeals, trolls start doubling down on respondents. However, Uniloc withdrew its claims against us, all the while continuing litigation against other companies. This court of appeals decision was one of three key points on our path to victory. We also helped other companies getting sued to formulate their arguments, as we held a stake in their verdicts as well.

The second major point was our case, which Uniloc was already well acquainted with. We had to keep it ironclad to hold up against all their pressure.

And third was an eight-hour face-to-face mediation with the Uniloc team.

Note that Uniloc revoked its claims exactly one week after GBAS closed its case against us. That just goes to show that our reputation as an uncompromising destroyer of dubious patent practice proceeds us. And I couldn’t be happier!

By the way, this was just one of three lawsuits we’ve been tangled up in against Uniloc, all of which ended in our favor — 3:0.

Our overall patent lawsuit score is 9:0 (not counting pre-trial dismissed claims).

1:0 IPAT v Kaspersky
2:0 IPAT v Digital River (indemnity)
3:0 Lodsys v Kaspersky
4:0 Device Security v Kaspersky
5:0 Wetro Lan v Kaspersky
6:0 Uniloc (1) v Kaspersky
7:0 GBAS v Kaspersky
8:0 Uniloc (3) v Kaspersky
9:0 Uniloc (2) v Kaspersky (the lawsuit I’m writing about here).

So there you have it. Don’t bother wasting your time or money.

Our auto-expedition around Namibia, as you have both read and seen, was a series of raptures, ecstasies, OMGs, woweees, and similar such woahs. But already it was coming to a close. Boo!

What no more of this? ->

Read on…

Enough about dead nature (rocks). Now for some nature that’s alive. And let’s begin with trees.

Yet another absolutely wonderful tourist attraction in Namibia is the aloe Quiver Tree Forest. It comprises around 250 specimens of aloidendron dichotomum, known locally as the quiver tree. And it’s amazing (just like so many other things in Namibia, an amazing country)! The quiver trees here are huge and, according to internet, live for 200-300 years (how does the internet know? It’ll only turn 30 soon:).

But let’s get back on topic. Wanna see the photos of the mentioned above aloidendron dichotomum?

Read on…

Don’t hope there won’t be any more Namibian stories :).

Last time, I promised to elaborate on a rock theme. Well, here you go!… in the Giant’s Playground.

It’s the perfect name for this place. Just imagine – giants that once inhabited our planet arranged here a playground for their children, where they frolicked as all children do, and played with toy blocks. Well this is what’s left of them:

Read on…

It’s time I wrote a few things about Namibian ‘lodges’. I’m afraid I’ve practically no photos thereof as we’d check in late in the evening and leave at dawn. However, at the Fish River Canyon, we planned for an early night and late rise, since our next day’s trip was going to be quite short – only 270km. The place was pretty good: Canyon Lodge Gondwana. Reception and the restaurant and bar are in one building, while the guesthouses are set in a most picturesque landscaped setting:

Read on…

It’s been a while since we’ve had any excavation news from the Minoan Bronze Age settlement of Akrotiri. But that doesn’t mean the archaeologists there aren’t still working away diligently. In fact, today I’ll show you how they’ve been continuing to expand our understanding of the ancient world.

You might be asking yourself: why Akrotiri, and not some other ancient city? Here’s a synopsis if you’ve missed my past posts.

In the Aegean Sea, the island of Santorini is probably best known for its Insta-friendly white houses, blue roofs, and breathtaking sunsets. But what a lot of people don’t know is that the island was once the site of one of mankind’s most significant natural disasters. Around 3,600 years ago, the Theran eruption destroyed a flourishing ancient culture. When excavations began here in the mid-20th century, archaeologists discovered an amazingly well-preserved city buried in volcanic ash, including two and three-story buildings. The settlement was incredibly advanced for the time, boasting structures with built-in sewage and water supply lines (I repeat: three thousand six hundred years ago!). Researchers have unearthed frescoes, pottery, furniture and numerous other artifacts attesting to the unbelievable cultural advancement of this ancient seaside society.

But when archaeology budgets were cut in Greece, excavations stopped due to lack of funding. Here and there some minor digging continued, but overall the project went into conversation mode. That’s where my obsession with the excavation begins, in 2006, when I first got acquainted with the settlement’s history. And when I put my mind to making the world a better place in some specific way, I get it done (or in this case, started!). So in 2016, lo and behold, excavations were resumed, after more than a decade, with our financial support! That’s how I ended up getting a chance to do a little digging myself, and dig I did! I even discovered a Cycladic statuette dated ~5,000 years old. Now every year we learn more and more about how the island’s ancient inhabitants lived.

So what were the highlights of 2019? There’s lots of fascinating progress to share in different areas:

Read on…

Fish River Canyon is one of the most important tourist attractions in Namibia, if we are to believe the ever-helpful internet. In fact, the view truly is spectacular!

Read on…