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Johnny's Seeds Lawsuit

Title: Johnny's Seeds Lawsuit
Since Rob Johnston is on this list, I felt this was something the members should know about.  The item is from another list.
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>Johnny's is being threatened with a lawsuit by a Chicago consulting firm
called divine, Inc. (with a small "d").   They are accusing us of patent
infringement.   They claim to own the technology that networks between a
seller's computer and a buyer's computer.  More personally, it's that we
receive your order and credit card information with our computer.  Umm...if
that sounds like ordinary e-commerce, we're with you.  Johnny's website
works pretty well,  thank you, but it's also technically ordinary.  Most web
shopping that you encounter on the internet uses essentially the same
technology.  Divine, Inc. claims that they own it.

>A number of companies have "settled" with Divine, Inc.  You can understand
why divine, Inc. would choose to go after smaller companies like Johnny's
that see cash settlement as an economical alternative to fighting it in
court.  The patent seems far too broad to us and is probably susceptible to
a court challenge, but since the costs of defense would be so high it makes
sense to settle.  On principle, we at Johnny's have no intention of
settling.

>Divine, Inc. is a big company that employs a lot of people.  Do any of you
work there?  The first link below is divine Inc.'s board of directors, and
the next link is the top management.   Do you know any of these people?  If
you do, please ask him or her about this.

http://www.divine.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=d3%2FPage%2Fd3SubSectio
nWrapper&c=Page&cid=1018281461444


http://www.divine.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=d3%2FPage%2Fd3SubSectio
nWrapper&c=Page&cid=1018630203152

What do you think we should do?

Thanks for any help.

If you want to read more about this, here are some links.

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107-962527.html
http://www.chillingeffects.org/patent/notice.cgi?NoticeID=446
http://australianit.news.com.au/common/print/0,7208,5376036%5e15391%5e%5enbv
%5e,00.html

http://www.sapinfo.net/public/en/news.php4/Category-28893c6139435ea7f/page/0
/article/Article-55313db52a0117540/en
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