Kurt,
I'm truly glad to hear that you've heard nothing. I had feared the worst with no updates on the subject. Is there a time limit that Monster has to contact you, either a legal time frame or an accepted industry standard? It would be nice to know at some point you've officially heard the last from them.
Well, first: if you hear nothing from us for a while, don't assume the worst. In fact, if they do sue us, the online community will know right away because we'll make sure the info gets right out.
And, no, there's really no time limit, by law or by convention. However, if they were going to pursue something, it's unlikely they'd sit around for a long time as it does open the door potentially to some equitable defenses (laches, waiver, and the like).
Have you considered making your letter available, basically as some type of form letter, for other family owned small business owners to use freely (or for a modest fee) if Monster tries to pull similar BS with them? Snow Monsters comes to mind.
Well, in effect, it's already available to anybody for free, so far as it is useful--theoretically, I suppose I have some copyright in it, but so long as people use whatever they find useful in it in actual fights with Monster or other IP bullies (as opposed to claiming it as their own work, for some other purpose) it would probably be "fair use" and therefore within their rights with or without my permission. The problem, of course, is that while one might use it as a sort of conceptual template, every case is different--you wouldn't want to send a boilerplate response to a cease-and-desist letter, because what kind of response you send depends on the facts and, to a great extent, on the merits of the particular case. If Monster's claims were not flat-out frivolous, the content of the letter would have been different. If Monster were asserting claims against a different connector, on the basis of different patents, the content would have been different, and so on...very hard to write a one-size-fits-all letter for this sort of thing.
Some elements of it, of course, are very particular to me. I knew that Monster almost certainly did not realize I had spent decades as a federal litigator, and I therefore had the opportunity not only to confront the claims and confront the inadequacy of the basis for those claims provided in the cease and desist letter, but also to make the point that I was not about to be a pushover. I certainly think that as a general rule, if you know you're not a "soft target," you may as well let your adversary know that up front--but of course, different people have different levels of aversion to litigation. As for me, having spent most of my adult life involved in litigation, I have an intense aversion to litigation where the merits are against me, and a kind of combative joy that attaches to litigation where the merits are in my favor. Skull-smashing is quite fun, if it's not your skull that's going to take the brunt.
I am considering putting together a sort of Internet clearinghouse for Monster litigation information, which might be of considerable value to people who get letters like this in the future. My thinking would be that simply getting all of the Monster litigation and intellectual property-related information together and downloadable in one place would be a helpful thing--it would save people in the future quite a bit of research. Most of that information is in the public record, though collecting it and assembling it into a readily accessible database might be quite a chore. In addition, some advice articles might be appropriate, though by the nature of the thing they'd have to be written rather broadly.
The main piece of advice I would have for anybody who has to deal with this sort of thing is: get a good intellectual property lawyer--and be sure that he knows his way around litigation, not just patent applications--and get him involved early. In my case, my roommate from second year at Penn is now an excellent IP litigator, so I didn't have to look far, and I have a bit of IP litigation experience myself so I'm not completely in the dark. Unfortunately, of course, it's hard for many people to know which of the lawyers they might call really know what they're doing and which don't. The legal profession is very easy to get into, so a law license is, unfortunately, far from a guarantee of minimally acceptable competence (hey, smart people: become lawyers! We need you!).
And when you get that lawyer: bear in mind that lawyers have a bias in favor of telling you at the outset that things are worse than they really are, because lawyers look good when the case improves and look foolish when it gets worse, so that they find themselves thinking it's better to "start low." But also bear in mind that if you're like most clients, you have a natural tendency to hear the parts of the advice that you want to hear and forget the other parts. You need a thoroughly candid consultation in which your lawyer is telling you what he REALLY thinks, and in which you are listening to ALL of that, even if parts of it are unsettling.
Also, it is important not to fear confrontation. I have seen some surprisingly timid responses to demand letters. What are people afraid of? Getting sued? The last time you want to be afraid of being sued is, believe it or not, when you're about to be sued. That is the time to take a very calm, candid look at your position and your opponent's position and fire off a response which is carefully modulated to match your evaluation of the case. If you're in trouble, you mildly deny liability but begin the process of inquiring about what it would take to make the claim go away. If you are not in trouble, by gum, you say so in the plainest and most direct language available to you. Why mince words when you are defending the lawfulness of your own conduct? Who will speak for you if you will not? And there are, of course, any number of possible spots in between "in trouble" and "not in trouble," which call for some blend of direct confrontation and indirect, rear-guard action deference.
Anyhow: I may very well assemble the great internet database/advice column for the beset-by-Monsters crowd. It'll take a while to get to, though, as the cable business does require plenty of tending...
Kurt
Blue Jeans Cable 