Cloudflare has put up $50,000 in rewards to help it battle Blackbird Tech in a patent lawsuit it was slapped with on 20 March.
Called Project Jengo, the $50,000 will fund two rewards, said Cloudflare.
Prior Art $20,000 – The first bounty is up to $20,000, and is for prior art which reads on the patent Blackbird used to sue Cloudflare, US 6453335.
It was filed in 1998 and describes a system for monitoring an existing data channel and inserting error pages when transmission rates fall below a certain level.
Nuking Blackbird’s patents $30,000 – The rest of the money will be divided among those who help it invalidate the rest of Blackbird’s patents.
Those who submit substantial prior art which reads on any of the 34 outstanding Blackbird patents, or their three patent applications currently in process, and could lead to their invalidation will qualify for a portion of the $30,000, said Cloudflare.
“The money will be distributed based on the quality of the prior art, the perceived value of the patent, and the extent to which the evidence is used in a proceeding to invalidate one of the Blackbird patents.”
Cloudflare said Blackbird is a dangerous kind of patent troll, and it plans to “contest the patent lawsuit vigorously”.
This article first appeared on MyBroadband and is republished with permission.
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