Newegg fought its way through two appeals to win fees from this patent-holder

Newegg's former Chief Legal Officer Lee Cheng. (credit: Newegg)

In 2010, AdjustaCam LLC filed suit (PDF) in Eastern Texas against dozens of companies, saying that they infringed US Patent No. 5,855,343, which describes a type of movable camera clip.

AdjustaCam is a subsidiary of Acacia Research Corporation, the biggest public patent-holding company. The AdjustaCam lawsuit included camera makers like Gear Head and Creative Labs, as well as retailers like Amazon, Newegg, K-Mart, Overstock.com, and Walmart.

Many of those companies paid relatively small amounts to settle their cases, based in the patent hotspot of East Texas. But Newegg litigated instead. By 2012, with summary judgment motions lined up, AdjustaCam tried to take the route of many patent-holding companies: simply walk away. Having been paid most of the settlements they were going to get, AdjustaCam lawyers dismissed the case.

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