In an interview with AVWeb, Finnegan partner Lionel Lavenue, discusses FlightPrep's online flight planning patent, which he says could very well stand up to a court challenge. Lavenue says FlightPrep's preliminary efforts to enforce the patent are actually quite normal, and protects the patent holder from an immediate countersuit of "a declaratory judgment of non-infringement." He also says it's common to approach smaller companies first before going after the more powerful entities to see what counter arguments might emerge. The article states that major players such as AOPA/Jeppesen, Flight Aware and Fltplan.com have all been contacted by FlightPrep and have all said they don't and will not discuss the issue with FlightPrep, which, according to Lavenue, could come back to haunt them in court. To listen to the complete podcast interview between AVWeb and Lionel Lavenue please click here.
