“We don’t negotiate payment with patent trolls,” said Pierre Racz, president of Genetec, a technology provider of unified security, public safety, operations and business intelligence solutions, as the company announced that a patent infringement lawsuit initiated by a non-practicing entity (NPE) was withdrawn by the NPE at an early stage of the proceedings. In a rare result, the NPE paid an undisclosed sum to Genetec. In patent litigation in the United States, it is highly unusual for a plaintiff to pay a defendant to resolve a case.

Genetec said it understands that legal attacks from non-practicing entities are an unfortunate part of the technology business. The practice, known as “patent trolling”, involves groups that don’t create technology, but rather aggregate patents that are generally of no technological value to use as the basis to initiate IP infringement cases against businesses. 

“Unlike the way many other companies deal with these sorts of attacks, we do not negotiate payment with patent trolls,” Racz said. “Despite the potentially high cost of litigation, bending to their anti-innovation tactics only encourages their behavior and, as a matter of principle, Genetec will always vigorously defend its technology and the hard work of the people who create it. Though we have quietly followed this course since the first patent troll arrived at our door, we felt that this occasion was a good time to speak out against this practice.”

This resolution settles all outstanding claims by the non-practicing entity against Genetec.

“This represents an important symbolic victory for Genetec, and a clear demonstration of our policy of never paying nuisance value settlements,” said Jean-Yves Pikulik, director of intellectual property at Genetec. “While we would much rather spend our time patenting our innovations than fighting off patent trolls, we will continue to vigorously defend ourselves against NPEs and seek legal costs in lawsuits that we perceive as frivolous.”