"India Jewell
Legal Director
Law Department
Sony Electronics Inc.
16530 Via Esprillo Drive
San Diego, CA 92127
T: (858) 942-0310
india.jewell@am.sony.com
The information contained in this e-mail message may be privileged, confidential and protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, any dissemination, distribution or copying is prohibited. If you think that you have received this e-mail message in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone or reply e-mail and delete the message and any attachments without retaining a copy.
From: Venger, Leonard
Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2014 5:44 PM
To: Higgins, Tristan (LAW); Jewell, India (LAW)
Cc: Weil, Leah; Przygoda, David (Legal)
Subject: FW: Iviewit Holdings, Inc./SONY - ATTY/CLIENT PRIVILEGED - COMMON INTEREST PRIVILEGED - JOINT DEFENSE PRIVILEGED
India/Tristan: Below is an email sent by David in 2012 concerning Iviewit. David sent it to me today so that I would have additional background (I deleted the names of the recipients). It tells us a lot about the folks with whom we are dealing. This could help us decide on a course of action – or inaction. Len.
From: Przygoda, David (Legal)
Sent: Monday, April 30, 2012 7:13 PM
To:
Subject: RE: Iviewit Holdings, Inc./SONY
Privileged and Confidential
Sorry in advance for the long email, but I looked through Ken’s files concerning the prior Iviewit matter and did some internet research on Iviewit and Stephen Lamont. The results are described below, and make clear that we’re dealing with a crazy person who will likely sue us if we don’t agree to his ridiculous demands by his May 27 deadline. However, it’s also clear that his claims are frivolous, as he does not act for Iviewit, nor does Iviewit appear to have any patent rights at all.
1. 2007 Bernstein/Lamont Suit and Bernstein’s Prior Negotiations with Sony
As Mark mentioned, in 2007, Eliot Bernstein and Lamont brought suit in the SDNY against almost 200 defendants (including Ken Rubenstein of Proskauer). In their 300-page complaint (which was filed pro se), they alleged that they and others at Iviewit invented video technologies that transformed the internet from a text-based medium to a medium filled with images and video. They asserted that the defendants engaged in a conspiracy to sabotage and steal this technology, and that the plot was covered up by scores of high level federal and state government officials, judges, lawyers, and law firms. Judge Scheindlin dismissed the complaint in 2008, and the Second Circuit later dismissed Lamont and Bernstein’s appeal sua sponte in 2010, finding it lacked any basis in law or fact.
Around this time, in May 2009, Bernstein approached Sony and demanded $10 million as a result of our alleged infringement of his intellectual property rights. Bernstein alleged that Sony learned of his intellectual property when we were “under NDA and other agreements both signed and in the drafting phase . . . regarding using the technology in the MovieLink (seven studio download/streaming) project. . . .” Ken spoke with Proskauer about Bernstein, and they confirmed that he has no patent rights and has made himself a nuisance to the numerous defendants he has sued. Proskauer’s view was that Bernstein is irrational, and that he would continue to contact us no matter how we dealt with him. However, I don’t believe that we ever formally responded to Bernstein’s threats, and he eventually went away.
2. Lamont Splits with Bernstein and Starts Suing Other Companies Allegedly on Behalf of Iviewit
Interestingly, Bernstein is not the one who contacted us this time. Instead, Lamont reached out in his alleged capacity as “Chairman and Chief Executive Officer” of an Iviewit entity called “Iviewit Technologies, Inc.” But according to an anti-Lamont website that Bernstein appears to have set up (http://www.stephenlamont.com/), Lamont no longer acts on behalf of Iviewit. The first posting on the Lamont blog claims that “Stephen Lamont Does NOT Speak for iVIewit Technologies,” and asks: “Who is P. Stephen Lamont Working For? Why Does P. Stephen Lamont Keep Stirring up the Iviewit Investors? Find your Facts!!!” (The anti-Lamont blog is not to be confused with Bernstein’s own blog -- http://www.eliotbernstein.com.) And Iviewit’s own website, which also seems to be run by Bernstein, states: “Warning, P. Stephen Lamont has been terminated from acting on behalf of Iviewit or Eliot Bernstein and has been reported for certain criminal misconduct to the State of New York and other authorities. If Lamont offers you shares of stock or any other inducement involving Eliot Bernstein or Iviewit[,] he is committing fraud.” (See http://iviewit.tv/.) This debate over whether or not Lamont speaks for Iviewit is somewhat irrelevant, since Iviewit seems like it currently exists only as a vehicle for Bernstein and Lamont to bring frivilous lawsuits and air their delusional rantings. (For example, the http://iviewit.tv/ site contains pictures that purportedly show being Bernstein’s car “bombed Iraqi style.”)
Despite Bernstein’s warnings, Lamont has recently brought suit against other companies based on allegations similar to the ones in his letter to Nicole, purportedly on behalf of himself and Iviewit. First, he filed a pro se lawsuit in May 2011 in the D.C. federal district court against Proskauer, Ken Rubenstein and other defendants from the 2007 action.
His complaint contains the same conspiracy-related allegations as the 2007 suit, but also names Time Warner as a defendant. Lamont claims that Time Warner has utilized Iviewit’s patents in violation of unspecified “strategic alliance contracts and NDA’s” after Iviewit “introduced” its technologies to Time Warner in December 2000. He purports to sue in his individual capactiy and, according to the caption of the complaint, as “nominee for 100% of the capital shares of Iviewit Holdings, Inc.” Unsurprisingly, Proskauer has moved to dismiss the complaint based on Lamont’s lack of standing to sue on behalf of anyone but himself, among other grounds.
Lamont also filed suit against Rovi in the D.C. federal district court last week after Rovi refused to cave to his demands by a date he specified. He also brought this suit pro se, again in his individual capacity “and as nominee for 100% of the capital shares of Iviewit Holdings, Inc.” In the attached complaint, he alleges that “under a confidentiality agreement between Iviewit and CinemaNow [a Rovi predecessor] dated December 2, 1999, among others, there was a knowledge transfer and technology disclosures made by Plaintiff to CinemaNow and that CinemaNow then made use of the Iviewit techniques without Iviewit’s authorization or payment of royalties.” He claims that the “particular disclosures related to United States Patent No’s: 09/630,939, 09/522,721, 09/587,734, 09/587,026, 09/587,730, among others.” (I couldn’t figure out how to get information about those particular patents using the U.S. Patent Office’s website, but hopefully someone in the IPD group might be able to.) He brings claims against Rovi under 42 U.S.C. 1983 and breach of contract (but not patent infringement), and asserts that his damages are in excess of $100 million.
3. Conclusion
In sum, we are clearly dealing with someone who is not playing with a full deck. (Take a look at his Twitter feed if you want more evidence of this, where he claims among other things that he has been “Hailed as Top War Time CEO in the History of Technology”: http://twitter.com/#!/pstephenlamont.) But based on his pattern of behavior with Time Warner and Rovi, he likely will file suit against us if we don’t meet his demands. It doesn’t seem like he’s someone with whom we could negotiate, even if we wanted to negotiate with him. So we’ll probably have to accept the fact that we will be sued and hope that we can prevail on a quick motion to dismiss.
Please let me know if you have any questions about this.
Best regards,
David"
Source
https://wikileaks.org/sony/emails/emailid/112480
Showing posts with label Proskauer Rose. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Proskauer Rose. Show all posts
Sunday, 6 August 2017
MPEG LA, Proskauer Rose, Raymond Joao, Kenneth Rubenstein, Synaptics and more involved in the THEFT of the iViewit Technologies
"My name is Eliot Bernstein and I am one of the inventors of the Iviewit inventions. Many of the quotes here are from me and the proof for many of these claims can be found at the iviewit.tv website. Simply go to left navigation bar and click on the Supreme Court button and then click on either Appendix C or Exhibit Gallery.
Although voluminous in size, the exhibits are chalk full of evidence and information regarding the ongoing investigations. Also, much can be learned at the Iviewit blog at http://patentgate.blogspot.com .
In response to this post, Rubenstein and Proskauer took invention disclosures from Iviewit inventors and patented those concepts into their management referral, Brian Utley's name. Rubenstein also contracted Raymond Joao at the law firm Meltzer Lippe Goldstein Wolfe & Schlissel to file the applications, while Rubenstein and Proskauer handled all of the other intellectual property work, including Rubenstein acting as a board member and opining to many investors on the inventions. Joao worked at the law firm that Rubenstein was at immediately prior to his learning of the Iviewit inventions, MLGWS and then after learning of the inventions,
Rubenstein instantly jumped to Proskauer, a firm that had no other intellectual property department to speak of and had been a real estate firm since the 1800's.
Proskauer had already been retained and began work for Iviewit prior to Rubenstein leaving Meltzer and in fact, Rubenstein and Joao were initially represented as Proskauer attorneys, although they were still at Meltzer.
Joao filed patents into his own name while retained by Iviewit to file patents as Rubenstein�s lackey. Joao�s patents contained many of the ideas he and Rubenstein learned from the Iviewit inventors, the disclosures and business plans of Iviewit. It is absurd to think that a patent attorney could file any patents in his name without a thorough conflict waiver from all clients and approval from the patent bar. History has never had a case where the patent attorney ran out and filed a blizzard of patents all crossing into his clients patent applications.
Joao was also part of an elaborate scheme to move the patents out of Iviewit and into companies that Proskauer set up that had similar and identical names to the Iviewit companies.
Yet, the shareholder of those companies appears to be Proskauer and others, not the true Iviewit shareholders or inventors. Iviewit shareholders, including the SBA were totally unaware that these similar companies had been set up and unaware that that similar patents were being filed into these companies with the false inventor Utley, false owners and assignees. Joao was discovered patenting ideas into his name and other dubious behavior and he was fired for his actions.
Proskauer and Utley referred William Dick of Foley and Lardner to replace Joao, Utley stated that Dick was the IBM Far East patent attorney and his very close personal friend. The original Proskauer attorney, Christopher Clarke Wheeler, Esq. (recently arrested in Del Ray Beach, FL for DUI with bodily injury) failed to disclose that he, Utley and Dick were involved in intellectual property crimes from Utley's former employ, Diamond Turf Equipment owned by Monte Freidkin of Boca Raton. Friedkin discovered that patents were walking out the door to Utley's sole (souless) name and fired him. It was not learned until Wheeler and Utley's deposition and Dick's response to the Virginia Bar that the three of them had been involved in the crime.
Wheeler set up the company, Dick wrote the patents from Utley's employer secretly into Utley's name at home and Utley got in and stole the inventions from his employer. This is the same type of scam that they instituted on Iviewit and again appear to be failing achieving their ends.
Dick was Joao's replacement and since it was never disclosed by any of them the fact of their prior past patent theft attempt, Iviewit was dumbfounded to find this prior history out after learning they were stealing Iviewit inventions. Moreover, Wheeler and Proskauer submitted a resume on Utley that claimed that Diamond Turf went on to be a huge success do to Utley's inventions, when the truth was that the company was instantly closed by Friedkin after he found Utley stealing from his company while acting as the President of Friedkin�s company.
Utley failed to disclose this, Wheeler and Proskauer never disclosed this when Iviewit retained them and Dick and Foley failed to inform us of Dick's past with this group. This is a criminal organization of patent thieves, they have a history and they are a danger to inventors, good lawyers everywhere and the United States and foreign countries patent systems.
I am not against patent attorneys filing patents as long as there is a hefty review by the patent department or the USTPO OED, to investigate if those attorney inventions lay claim on any client inventions they may have represented or as in our case misrepresented.
It is very dangerous for patent attorneys to be patenting inventions for themselves while representing client interests, and the obvious collusion amongst patent attorneys to work together to steal each others clients inventions remains a gaping hole.
Yet these guys filed false oaths on applications in others names for inventions they learned while retained by the Iviewit inventors, no excuse can be had for this, this is plain theft, fraud on the patent office, fraud on the Iviewit inventors, the Iviewit shareholders and all the EPO foreign offices and the history of the world and invention.
This is not even close to a patent attorney having a novel idea (although that seems far fetched as attorneys are not typically inventive) and then patenting it in his name with no client involved. Joao has stated that some of his inventions were prior to ours and that Iviewit was in fact infringing on his inventions (he claimed this to the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division First Department Departmental Disciplinary Committee), yet Joao failed to seek waivers or disclose this in writing or verbally to anyone seems absurd.
I find it further disgusting that MPEG patent inclusion is controlled by a single person, Rubenstein, where the temptation is all to obvious. Patent pooling schemes have been killed historically by the Justice Department for the very reasons that Iviewit complains of, anti-competitive monopolistic practices that violate Sherman and Clayton and almost every antitrust practice.
Patent pooling schemes created by lawyers to make money as middlemen also seems to violate ethics. For instance, how can Proskauer and Rubenstein profit from MPEG as counsel for MPEG, as Rubenstein discloses in his deposition at the Iviewit Exhibit gallery and at the same time taking invention disclosure as counsel under Proskauer for review from the inventors for patent concepts that could completely render MPEG useless, as the Iviewit inventions do?
How can Rubenstein review Iviewit patents for MPEG and at the same time give Iviewit unbiased advice on their patents or control their fate by inclusion or exclusion. The conflict is as wide as the Grand Canyon, no China Wall, in fact an open door for crime to occur, crimes that violate Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 inventor protections by those entrusted to protect those rights as part of the patent bar. The obvious is happening here, MPEG and Proskauer have found a way to review patents as patent counsel and then steal them as patent poolers looking to profit from others inventions.
The first complaint that was filed at the patent office was in an invention format as a joke, not a joke to laugh at, it was appropriately titled, "System and Method for Committing Fraud on the United States Patent Office and the Iviewit Inventors". I wonder if the patent department will approve it. This is the only thing that Joao, Proskauer, Rubenstein, Utley and others accused ever invented.
Please feel free to contact me for further information or an interview
Eliot I. Bernstein
Inventor
Iviewit Technologies, Inc.
iviewit@iviewit.tv"
Source
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20060119/1225216.shtml
Although voluminous in size, the exhibits are chalk full of evidence and information regarding the ongoing investigations. Also, much can be learned at the Iviewit blog at http://patentgate.blogspot.com .
In response to this post, Rubenstein and Proskauer took invention disclosures from Iviewit inventors and patented those concepts into their management referral, Brian Utley's name. Rubenstein also contracted Raymond Joao at the law firm Meltzer Lippe Goldstein Wolfe & Schlissel to file the applications, while Rubenstein and Proskauer handled all of the other intellectual property work, including Rubenstein acting as a board member and opining to many investors on the inventions. Joao worked at the law firm that Rubenstein was at immediately prior to his learning of the Iviewit inventions, MLGWS and then after learning of the inventions,
Rubenstein instantly jumped to Proskauer, a firm that had no other intellectual property department to speak of and had been a real estate firm since the 1800's.
Proskauer had already been retained and began work for Iviewit prior to Rubenstein leaving Meltzer and in fact, Rubenstein and Joao were initially represented as Proskauer attorneys, although they were still at Meltzer.
Joao filed patents into his own name while retained by Iviewit to file patents as Rubenstein�s lackey. Joao�s patents contained many of the ideas he and Rubenstein learned from the Iviewit inventors, the disclosures and business plans of Iviewit. It is absurd to think that a patent attorney could file any patents in his name without a thorough conflict waiver from all clients and approval from the patent bar. History has never had a case where the patent attorney ran out and filed a blizzard of patents all crossing into his clients patent applications.
Joao was also part of an elaborate scheme to move the patents out of Iviewit and into companies that Proskauer set up that had similar and identical names to the Iviewit companies.
Yet, the shareholder of those companies appears to be Proskauer and others, not the true Iviewit shareholders or inventors. Iviewit shareholders, including the SBA were totally unaware that these similar companies had been set up and unaware that that similar patents were being filed into these companies with the false inventor Utley, false owners and assignees. Joao was discovered patenting ideas into his name and other dubious behavior and he was fired for his actions.
Proskauer and Utley referred William Dick of Foley and Lardner to replace Joao, Utley stated that Dick was the IBM Far East patent attorney and his very close personal friend. The original Proskauer attorney, Christopher Clarke Wheeler, Esq. (recently arrested in Del Ray Beach, FL for DUI with bodily injury) failed to disclose that he, Utley and Dick were involved in intellectual property crimes from Utley's former employ, Diamond Turf Equipment owned by Monte Freidkin of Boca Raton. Friedkin discovered that patents were walking out the door to Utley's sole (souless) name and fired him. It was not learned until Wheeler and Utley's deposition and Dick's response to the Virginia Bar that the three of them had been involved in the crime.
Wheeler set up the company, Dick wrote the patents from Utley's employer secretly into Utley's name at home and Utley got in and stole the inventions from his employer. This is the same type of scam that they instituted on Iviewit and again appear to be failing achieving their ends.
Dick was Joao's replacement and since it was never disclosed by any of them the fact of their prior past patent theft attempt, Iviewit was dumbfounded to find this prior history out after learning they were stealing Iviewit inventions. Moreover, Wheeler and Proskauer submitted a resume on Utley that claimed that Diamond Turf went on to be a huge success do to Utley's inventions, when the truth was that the company was instantly closed by Friedkin after he found Utley stealing from his company while acting as the President of Friedkin�s company.
Utley failed to disclose this, Wheeler and Proskauer never disclosed this when Iviewit retained them and Dick and Foley failed to inform us of Dick's past with this group. This is a criminal organization of patent thieves, they have a history and they are a danger to inventors, good lawyers everywhere and the United States and foreign countries patent systems.
I am not against patent attorneys filing patents as long as there is a hefty review by the patent department or the USTPO OED, to investigate if those attorney inventions lay claim on any client inventions they may have represented or as in our case misrepresented.
It is very dangerous for patent attorneys to be patenting inventions for themselves while representing client interests, and the obvious collusion amongst patent attorneys to work together to steal each others clients inventions remains a gaping hole.
Yet these guys filed false oaths on applications in others names for inventions they learned while retained by the Iviewit inventors, no excuse can be had for this, this is plain theft, fraud on the patent office, fraud on the Iviewit inventors, the Iviewit shareholders and all the EPO foreign offices and the history of the world and invention.
This is not even close to a patent attorney having a novel idea (although that seems far fetched as attorneys are not typically inventive) and then patenting it in his name with no client involved. Joao has stated that some of his inventions were prior to ours and that Iviewit was in fact infringing on his inventions (he claimed this to the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division First Department Departmental Disciplinary Committee), yet Joao failed to seek waivers or disclose this in writing or verbally to anyone seems absurd.
I find it further disgusting that MPEG patent inclusion is controlled by a single person, Rubenstein, where the temptation is all to obvious. Patent pooling schemes have been killed historically by the Justice Department for the very reasons that Iviewit complains of, anti-competitive monopolistic practices that violate Sherman and Clayton and almost every antitrust practice.
Patent pooling schemes created by lawyers to make money as middlemen also seems to violate ethics. For instance, how can Proskauer and Rubenstein profit from MPEG as counsel for MPEG, as Rubenstein discloses in his deposition at the Iviewit Exhibit gallery and at the same time taking invention disclosure as counsel under Proskauer for review from the inventors for patent concepts that could completely render MPEG useless, as the Iviewit inventions do?
How can Rubenstein review Iviewit patents for MPEG and at the same time give Iviewit unbiased advice on their patents or control their fate by inclusion or exclusion. The conflict is as wide as the Grand Canyon, no China Wall, in fact an open door for crime to occur, crimes that violate Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 inventor protections by those entrusted to protect those rights as part of the patent bar. The obvious is happening here, MPEG and Proskauer have found a way to review patents as patent counsel and then steal them as patent poolers looking to profit from others inventions.
The first complaint that was filed at the patent office was in an invention format as a joke, not a joke to laugh at, it was appropriately titled, "System and Method for Committing Fraud on the United States Patent Office and the Iviewit Inventors". I wonder if the patent department will approve it. This is the only thing that Joao, Proskauer, Rubenstein, Utley and others accused ever invented.
Please feel free to contact me for further information or an interview
Eliot I. Bernstein
Inventor
Iviewit Technologies, Inc.
iviewit@iviewit.tv"
Source
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20060119/1225216.shtml
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