Twitter accuser no stranger to patent infringement lawsuits

Build a service that attracts 44.5 million people worldwide and Oprah? Success breeds envy, so don’t forget to hire lawyers.

Texas-based TechRadium, Inc. filed a lawsuit against Twitter accusing the company of infringing on three patents (here, here and here) covering mass notification through phones, fax and wireless systems.

“TechRadium has spent a lot of time and money developing our technology and we will potentially lose any reward for our efforts if Twitter continues its unlicensed use of our technology,” said TechRadium’s general counsel, Louis A. Vetrano, Jr. “That’s our patented technology.”

TechRadium’s technology was designed for schools, the government and the U.S. military, but it’s not free. Users pay monthly or annual subscription fees, one of many reasons why it may not have grown as explosively as Twitter (of course, most companies don’t grow as explosively as Twitter).

Sugar Land, Texas-based TechRadium clearly takes a lot of pride in its patents; the company website has a patent section, but no information about its investors or management team. (Its advisory board has former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge on it, though.) This isn’t TechRadium’s first experience with litigation, either — it sued Blackboard Inc. last year alleging that the company violated TechRadium’s patents after acquiring NTI Inc.

Twitter recognized earlier the possibility of lawsuits earlier this year in internal meetings and has beefed up its legal department, snagging Google’s deputy counsel for products and intellectual property Alexander Macgillivray. Macgillivray has experience on this front, taking a leading role in Google’s settlement with book authors and publishers over scanning out-of-print books.

TechRadium did not respond immediately to calls for comment.

http://viewer.docstoc.com/

TechRadium Vs. Twitter patent Lawsuit –