Is the Littman 45 Single now legal or ludicrous?

This is the text of Mr. Litman's last email to me, all in capital letters as I received it:

THE UTILIZATION OF THE POLAROID 900 AS REPAIR PARTS, IMPROVEMENTS TO OTHER ROLL FILM CAMERAS, IS PROTECTED EVEN IF NO FORMAT CONVERSION OCCURS, AND ALSO PROTECTED FOR THE 4X5 APPLICATION. CLEARLY AND UNEQUIVOCALLY IN US PATENT APPLICATION 6608971 AND OTHER APPLICATION PENDING. JUST LOOK AT THE LIST OF PARTS ASSIGNED FROM EACH CAMERA MODEL. THESE CAMERAS ARE WORTHLESS UNLESS USED FOR THESE PURPOSES, YOU HAVE STARTED BUYING THEM AFTER MY PATENT WAS ISSUED, AND I REQUEST THAT YOU DO NOT CAUSE ME TO PAY MORE BY COMPETING ON ITEMS YOU CAN NOT USE, MAKE OR SELL, BECAUSE THE PARTS ARE IDENTICAL AND WITHOUT SERIAL NUMBERS I CANNOT MONITOR THEIR USE, SO I MUST MONITOR THEIR ACQUISITION, IN YOUR CASE , IT IS PRETTY CLEAR AND DEMONSTRABLE USE INTENDED WHEN COMBINED WITH ALL OF YOUR AUCTION DESCRIPTIONS, THESE ACTIONS ARE HARMFUL TO ME BY INFLATING THE PRICE ON ITEMS WHICH I WOULD NORMALLY PAY 10.00 OR LESS AND BY DEPRIVING ME OF INVENTORY , AND BY DISTORTING THE VALUE OF THE UNMODIFIED CAMERA AND THE MOVE TO PURCHASE THEM , MOTIVATED BY CONVENIENCES WHICH I OWN. SO IN THE FUTURE I MAY HAVE TO PAY MORE EVEN IF NOT COMPETED AGAINST EVEN IF YOU HAVE PROOF OF HAVING MADE YOUR110B ADAPTER EARLIER AS YOU CLAIM, YOU ARE TO REFRAIN FROM BUYING THE POLAROID 900 CAMERAS OTHERWISE I MAY ALLEGE INFRINGEMENT ON THE USE OF THE POLAROID 900 PARTS. OF COURSE IF AT THE TIME SUCH ISSUE MAY COME UP IN THE FUTURE , IF YOU WOULD HAVE ALL THE POLAROID 900 CAMERAS COMPLETE AND UNMODIFIED OR YOU HAVE SOLD THEM TO OTHERS WITHOUT ALTERING THEM YOU WOULD HAVE NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT. I MAY NOT BE ABLE TO MONITOR THE SPECIFIC USE OF THE PARTS AS THEY HAVE NO SERIAL NUMBERS, BUT I CAN MONITOR WHAT I HAVE EXPRESSED AND THEREFORE I ASK YOU TO REFRAIN. THANK YOU.

Anyone have any thoughts?

Well Richard, I guess I was gobsmacked by the by the huge response to my original posting! I mean the old Polaroid 110 series is a great camera, even after 40 years, but it`s no Linhof. Any modification performed by others to its structure shouldn`t attract such furore. I figure that as the long shadow cast by the Littman arm is quite apparent, attention to the situation should be well aired. Polaroid enthusiasts are now being instructed by this fellow not to outbid him on Ebay auctions in his pursuit for the 900. These antics should be made known. Perhaps I`ll develop an even more compact rangefinder assisted 4x5 than what`s currently offered! (Not utilising the Polaroid 900 finder of course!)

If Mr. Littman is emailing people demanding that they not bid on Ebay auctions so that he can win the auctions at a low prices, people might want to contact Ebay and supply copies of the emails to Ebay. This behavior is very likely against Ebay's terms of service. I am sure that Ebay takes a dim view of people interferring in auctions so as to lower the final price. With enough complaints, Ebay might terminate his account. The idea that other people can't buy a particular camera because Mr. Littman asserts patent rights to a particular modification of the camera is ludicrous. He is outdoing SCO, which is quite an achievement.

I agree, if that truly is an email going out from Mr Littman then that surely seems to be violing both eBay policies.

What is Mr Littman's eBay id?

Here is a link to the patent itself. What nonsense. And we pay our government to grant this! He is claming that any format conversion on a rangefinder coupled camera is covered by his patent.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph- Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/ srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6608971.WKU.&OS=PN/6608971&RS=PN/ 6608971 CH

at least one focusing door hinge for pivoting mounting said focusing door to said front shell of said body shell, selected from the group consisting of Polaroid Models 110, 110A, 110B, 120, 900 and 150 cameras;

Here is a list of the cameras he needs for his convertion from his patent, lets all get together and bid on them on E bay, just to spite this bufoon...;-)

Keep up the fight Dean. The guys in the patent office don't really know what goes on, and probably don't have the resources to research most of the more obscure patents. In the computer world, patents have been awarded for trivial inventions, and if you are in a startup, you try to patent whatever you can to avoid having to compete.

I didn't see a way to challenge a patent that has already been issued - does anyone know of a way to do this (without a small fortune in lawyer's fees)?

The email above is as I received it and it's one of his shorter emails. Note he implies that he's going to come over to my shop and check that all my Polaroid 900's are "COMPLETE AND UNMODIFIED" so I "WOULD HAVE NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT"!

William Littman's name as it appears on the patent is, "Litman, Guillermo E.". His ebay nickname is, "willalwayssendpayment".

The USPTO denied his first claim to the 4x5 format change. Whatever the patent is for, it isn't for converting a Polaroid roll film camera to 4x5. Read it carefully!

The ludicrousness lies in the way the inventor chooses to enforce his patent, not in the patent itself.

A close friend of mine purchased a Littman 45 on Ebay. Mr, Littman wrote him by email and threatened him with all sorts of actions for buying it from a third party in violation of the Littman Sales Agreement which my friend was of course not a party to. As I read the email exchanges I could not believe that anyone in their right mind could write such nonsense.

Have you ever read Littmans agreement? What a joke, the guy writes on a 3rd grade level. (I digress)

Anyway, a few months back I considered buying one. I wrote Littman a letter and discussed the purchase of one of his modified cameras. Ultimately I decided not to buy, but in the meantime Littman was calling me on my cell phone during my vacation complaining about my friends purchse. I tried to be cordial, but after a number of annoying calls my wife finally took my phone and made me turn it off.

During the calls, Nr. Littman was irrational and threatened my friend with law suits. Little did Littman know that he was harassing the wrong guy.

Anyway, my personal experiences with this individual has me wondering why anyone would purchase one of his cameras. Besides being incredibly expensive, I found Littman to lack people skills and was nasty, arrogant and obnoxious.

Buyer beware, this guy is not the type of individual that I would do business with.

The above is my opinion based upon personal dealings with the man.

-MJK