Help Capstone Defend Against an Abuse of the Patent System

HELP CAPSTONE
DEFEND AGAINST AN
ABUSE OF OUR PATENT SYSTEM

WE DID IT!
THREE BAD PATENTS DECLARED INVALID!
Read the Ruling Here

After a ten month ordeal and about $100,000 in legal expenses, Capstone Photography is pleased to announce that a Federal Judge has ruled in our favor and declared three patents are ineligible for patent protection under 35 USC Section 101. The lawsuit is over and Capstone has prevailed. Thank you for all of your support.

A bit of background on the case:

An individual named Peter Wolf filed for and received three patents related to event photography. We understood that these patents failed for a number of different reasons to meet the requirements for patent protection by the US Government. Capstone did nothing wrong, and never stole anyone's intellectual property. Nonetheless, we were sued on December 31, 2013, and we spent the last ten months defending our company and racking up tremendous legal expenses.

We were not the first to be sued. Before us, the patent-holder had already contacted or sued more than a dozen companies. When confronted with the high costs of legal defense, one by one, they each agreed to settle with him. Despite severe financial pressure, we decided not to settle and instead to fight these bad patents. We knew it would cost more, but we knew it was the right thing to do. Though many of our larger competitors had taken the easy way out, we stood up on behalf of the many hard-working and talented photographers who suffer financially from these bad patents.

On October 28, 2014 a Federal Judge ruled in our favor and declared all three patents invalid. We are grateful to be vindicated by the courts, as we knew we would be. The photography business is now better for these rulings, open to free and fair competition that is the basis for our American economy.

Standing up for our industry comes at a tremendous cost. Aside from the emotional distress and taking away time and energy from growing our business, our legal expenses are around $100,000. Externally Capstone may seem like a big company, but we're a very small business consisting of the owner (Mike Skelps) and three hard-working employees plus a team of talented contract photographers. We took a great risk to put this much money into the case. Although we're committed to dig out from under these expenses ourselves, we hope that many of you who are on our side will consider donating to help us offset some of these expenses.

In 2015, our mission takes on a broader role. We are uniting with "Application Developer Alliance" and "United for Patent Reform" to support Congress' initiative to get tough on patent abusers. We will have Op/Ed pieces running in local papers. I have written and will continue to communicate to Congress the dangers of patent abusers. At the request of the House Judiciary Committee, I am sending video testimony about our ordeal. Please write your Congressmen and tell them to End Patent Abuse now!