There's no content in the article about which four patents are at issue or what their significance is. Anyone recognize these?
5,999,908 “Customer-Based Product Design Module”
7,133,834 “Product Value Information Interchange Server”
7,222,078 “Methods and System for Gathering Information from Units of a Commodity"
7,620,565 “Customer-Based Product Design Module”
The patents share a common inventor (Daniel H. Abelow).
The patents all descend from the '998 patent ( http://imgur.com/dJT7o ): the '834 patent is a continuation of the '908, the '565 is a continuation of the '834, and the '078 is a continuation of a different continuation of the '908.
The patents have been in ~15 to 25 suits, depending on the patent and including declaratory judgment actions, since 2011.
