The text of a letter being sent to various ecommerce companies by Furnace Brook:

Furnace Brook is willing to offer a license under it s '832 patent for a one-time payment of $25,000. Alternatively, Furnace Brook is willing to accept $15,000 now, and an additional $45,000 if we are successful in the court of Appeals. Should Furnace Brook prevail on appeal, the license offer will obviously increase substantially.

'832 claims "an interactive computerized catalog system." Claim 1 was asserted, and is exemplary.

1. An improved interactive computerized catalog process comprising the steps of:
storing digitized graphic catalog data in a selectively addressable computer system memory,
generating a menu of catalog products and services comprising catalog data available for selective viewing at any user's telephone associated terminal screen,
establishing a selective communication link initiated by a user between said user's telephone terminal and said computer system,
transmitting said menu of catalog products and services data to a user's telephone terminal in response to a user's initial request,
transmitting from said computer system such catalog data which corresponds to said user's product and services request signal,
requesting user authorization to include data regarding an order transaction in a customer profile marketing data file,
initiating an order processing sequence, including a user initiated financial payment authorization process, to permit a user to enter from a user telephone terminal an order to be processed and delivered in response to said user's order, and
enabling a user when placing an order to selectively elect to be included in or to be excluded from said customer profile marketing data file created as part of a completed catalog product or services order transaction.

Furnace Brook sued Overstock.com in Southern District of New York. Overstock filed a summary judgment motion toward the end of August. Overstock had assumed the broad claim construction offered by Furnace Brook, and was still able to argue non-infringement because Overstock's system doesn't require user authorization per claim 1. Furnace Brook argued that Overstock had an opt-out of marketing feature that met the claim limitation.

 A Markman order at the end of September pitched the Furnace Brook baby with the bath water in claim construction.

The Court's Markman decision disagreed with Furnace Brook on several of its claim constructions. The Court held that the terms telephone terminal referred only to a standard telephone landline unit, and that customer terminal means referred only to a standard telephone landline unit or an interactive hookup with a touchtone telephone and a cable TV system. The Court held that these terms, which in the patent refer to the user-end or customer means of access, did not comprise computers or cell phones. The Court also held that Selective Communication Link and Switchable communications means refer to a dial-up connection through a telephone exchange or a private branch exchange to a telephone network. The Court held that these terms, which describe the connection between the retailer's computer and the customer's telephone, do not refer to the Internet.

[T]his Court concludes that under the doctrine of "prosecution history estoppel," Furnace Brook is now barred from claiming that computer access on the customer end is also encompassed by the '832 patent, because its inventors specifically disavowed such a construction during the prosecution of the patent.

Overstock's evidence has demonstrated that personal computers and cell phones were existing technology, known to the inventors of the '832 patent, at the time that patent was prosecuted. The Court rejects any argument by Furnace Brook that a cell phone or personal computer could be considered equivalents, under the doctrine of equivalents, to the "customer terminal means", as these supposed equivalents are substantially different from the claimed structure [].

 The court granted summary judgment to Overstock on October 27.

If your company gets such a solicitation letter from Furnace Brook, follow the exhortation of Shadrack, Meshack and Abednago: "Burn baby burn!"