Negri Electronics CEO Ryan Negri said Tuesday the electronics reseller...
Negri Electronics CEO Ryan Negri said Tuesday the electronics reseller is the first defendant in what is likely to be a larger patent infringement battle pitting ExoTablet against Asus ExoTablet filed the lawsuit Jan. 25 in U.S. District Court in…
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Atlanta (http://bit.ly/WUN9ir). ExoTablet claims Asus’s PadFone and PadFone 2 violate its patents for the TransPhone, a combination laptop-mobile phone device. Other U.S. retailers could become ExoTablet targets, Negri said in a news release. “We were extremely surprised by this proxy legal action ... and do not feel we have violated any U.S. laws,” Negri said. “We believe this lawsuit to be frivolous and without any merit whatsoever, and plan to defend it vigorously in the courts.” Negri said he believes the lawsuit is an instance of patent trolling, saying he finds it interesting that “before filing its lawsuit against us, ExoTablet spent several months trying to persuade us to sell the TransPhone, the laptop/cell phone product to which it claims a patent. We declined to offer the TransPhone to our customers after determining through independent testing that the product was of inferior quality and should not be on the market. At no time did ExoTablet make any mention of a patent dispute with ASUS, nor did they serve us with a cease-and-desist letter or injunction before filing this lawsuit. Their patent infringement lawsuit came as a total surprise and we believe may be due to our refusal to sell their subpar products” (http://bit.ly/UE86hm).