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Are You Properly Licensed To Use Ethernet Technology?
Some may call them legitimate patent enforcers protecting an inventor's rights under US patent law, others call them patent trolls. I write this column to draw your attention to disturbing patent enforcement activity that may unsuspecting come haunt you and your firm.
I have been very disturbed by recent e-mails I have gotten from peers across the country. Some are getting informed that their clients who use Ethernet technology are getting sued by the new entity that holds the 3Com patents for Ethernet. One such peer writes, “One of my clients has been pulled into this. Basically the assertion is that every non 3-Com Ethernet device is illegal due to patent infringement. They are not only going after manufacturers, but also end users as well.“
It seems some of the largest Ethernet vendors in the industry are girding for a fight with this outfit. In the meantime, end-user companies such as yours are getting caught up in the fight.
Here are a couple of links. This first one is pleasant sounding enough because it comes from U.S. Ethernet Innovations, LLC (“USEI”), the owner of the fundamental Ethernet technology developed by 3Com Corporation in the 1990s. The underlying message is ominous.
Here is a good slide deck from law firm Dorsey and Whitney who is fighting this sort of patent infringement case:
http://www.dorsey.com/files/upload/MP_CCS2010_Complete_Patent_Trolls.pdf
So I have now made you aware of a possible lawsuit against your firm, so now what do you do? I don’t have any specific recommendations at this time. I personally plan to keep tabs on this situation and see how it proceeds.
Why Do Enterprise Companies Choose To Work With MSPs?
Enterprise Management Associates recently concluded a study asking why enterprise companies choose to work with MSPs. Jim Frey, Managing Research Director and EMA headed that study. Jim’s research uncovered a few interesting items. I will share a few of those here with you.
A Great Webinar On Backup And Disaster Recovery
I just did a one hour webinar sponsored by IBM and brought to the Internet by eWeek, a Ziff Davis Media publication. If I do say so myself I think it went very well. Elliot Markowitz of eWeek said he thought it was the best webinar so far this year.
Click Here for the Webinar:
http://bit.ly/ltTkAPDisaster Recovery: Learning from the Past to Get Ready for the Future
Internet Growth Continues To Boom
ake a quick look at this report and the increases in bandwidth usage in the past five years. The next four years show that it is not expected to slow down its robust growth.
“The report notes that global IP traffic has increased by a factor of eight times in the last five years and will increase by another factor of four in the next five years.”
HIPAA IS Leading Concern FOR CIOs
IPswitch conducted a recent survey of 100,000 end users who were asked about their most challenging compliance issues. According to the survey, compliance with the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was the clear winner for the top spot. Of the 100,000, 38.2% chose HIPAA and second place came in at 29.3% held by Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX). The next closest competitor for IT concern was compliance with the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) at a mere 9.2.
Beware Of How You Answer Audit Or Assessment Questions
If you are regulated under any of the myriad government and industry regulations from ITAR, FIPS, CLETS and PCI, to HIPAA and Red flags, the process of responding to security, integrity, and availability verification is not a simple exercise. It is more than answering questions in the positive. Polices, procedures and declarations of compliance are contracts with your company, partners, clients and government regulatory bodies. What do I mean?
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