1. ULTRA: Strengthening Intellectual Property
through Intelligence
Company Overview and
Case Studies Involving Companies
NVIDIA, eBay, & Ariat
Presentation For Cooley Godward LLP
http://www.avestar-ip.com
2. • Avestar-IP was created by Navastream Corporation to address the
growing challenges businesses face defending their intellectual
property and corporate identity online
Since 2001, Avestar-IP and Navastream have offered a sophisticated suite of intelligent online information
management technology. Navastream Corporation is also the leading North American provider of strong
encryption technology for GSM cellular phones.
• Collaboration – Secure Project Management
OurProject ASP (http://www.ourproject.com), in Standard, Enterprise, & Enterprise LAN editions
• Intelligence – ULTRA ASP Platform
Patent-pending ULTRA offers a full suite of sophisticated ASP-based Internet intelligence tools that Avestar-
IP can customize to provide the look and feel of a partner's own internally developed software. In May
2006, Iron Mountain launched ULTRA as its “Enforcement Service.”
Overview of Avestar-IP
3. ULTRA environment summary
• The last decade has seen a gradual shift from “motiveless” hacking to
organized online criminal activity and increased Internet fraud; according to a
Financial Times survey conducted by IBM, Internet crime now a larger threat
than traditional hacking
• The explosion in the volume of information created and published daily on the
Internet makes it impossible to track and archive relevant Information manually
• Previously, it has not been possible to police worldwide use of trademarks,
knock-offs/third-shift sales and unauthorized reselling; however, as the volume
of trade on the Internet grows, with highly sophisticated monitoring technology, it
is becoming possible to patrol this universe effectively.
4. ULTRA service summary
Through custom, client-controlled, continuous Internet monitoring, ULTRA gives
companies and their attorneys the power to detect, track, and analyze potential
and imminent threats to corporate identity. The industry’s most sophisticated
tool both to manage and protect IP, ULTRA provides clients a secure, multi-user
environment where employees from such diverse functional groups as legal,
marketing, and product development can easily share information and
collaborate to monitor the company’s online presence and to track and maintain
trademarks, brands, patents, and products.
Clients use ULTRA to automatically identify unauthorized resellers, linking
relationships, trademark usage, copycat sites, counterfeit product
sales/auctions, and relevant patent and trademark applications. In addition,
ULTRA identifies domain name registrations including company trademarks and
similarities, and tracks online references to client companies, whether by
employees or customers or on newsgroups, blogs, or bulletin boards.
5. ULTRA technological superiority
• Superior Information Gathering
ULTRA collects information using a multidimensional combination of proprietary
algorithms designed specifically for tracking intellectual property. ULTRA presents
users with critical online intelligence quickly in a logical and structured format via a
standard Internet browser.
• Efficient Presentation
ULTRA delivers its finding through an advanced and easy-to-use ASP
architecture that allows busy executives to quickly understanding important
developments without wasting time using generic and consumer-based tools,
such as those offered by Google or Yahoo!.
• Patent Pending
On February 17, 2006, we filed a patent application (“Method for Real-Time
Internet Search and Database Creation”) in defense of ULTRA. In due course,
we are optimistic that this patent will be granted.
6. ULTRA service offerings
• Domain name enforcement
Monitor real-time registrations of infringing domain names, both typo squatters and trademark squatters
• Logo/picture tracking and recognition
Track logo/trademark use and infringement online
• Patent and trademark database management
Manage company-owned patents and trademarks and stay on top of patent applications in your company’s product area(s)
• Newsgroup & blog reports
Track rumors, hoaxes, and grassroots threats as well as monitor for company employees blogging about official business
• Track auction sales of company products
Identify auctions in which company products, or counterfeit company products, are being sold.
• Brand usage reports
Determine which resellers, consumer associations, and unauthorized parties are using Company brands
• Custom searches for key words and phrases
Monitor brands, patents, topics, and key players' identities
7. • At the request of Todd Bontemps, Avestar-IP opened cases pertaining to trademarks
eBay, NVIDIA, and Ariat.
• Using ULTRA, we generated sample reports relating to these case studies and, in the
following slides, we have highlighted how a user could use the system to generate
these reports.
• ULTRA is designed as a monitoring service, and as such it captures only new posts to
the web, new applications, and new domain name registrations. Although we have the
capability to scan all web content, such activities were beyond the scope of this sample
case study.
• Key findings/limitations were as follows:
– All three accounts suffered from domain name (typo)squatting/monetization, although NVIDIA
and eBay returned substantial more results than Ariat.
– Due to the strong online presence of Ariat’s and NVIDIA’s retailers, these account returned
substantial trademark usage by others. However, without knowing the details of these
company’s retail agreements and trademark usage guidelines, we cannot definitively identify
questionable activities.
– Because we did not upload company logos, image results are more limited than would
typically be the case.
Sample case results
8. • On June 10, Spiral Matrix (a/k/a Kentech Inc.) launched a domain monetization campaign on
NVIDIA trademarks. By early morning on June 11, this campaign could be easily identified using
ULTRA. By filtering for “Spiral Matrix” as shown, a complete list of the 53 infringing domain names
can be identified (image on right) and exported into a report (image on left).
Domain name registrations
Expand the tree to view ccTLDs (i.e.,
international domains) with the same term.
To aid in quickly determining site content, ULTRA
automatically collects the website title and initial text.
Easily retrieve who-is
information
Email or print reports
9. Domain name registrations
• Looking back to last week, all the domain names registered including similarities to the NVIDIA
trademark were abandoned. Using ULTRA, this can be easily determined, as the checkmark in the
second column has been automatically removed and no text from the website is displayed.
• However, ULTRA saves a record of the registration attempt in the event the user later wants to
prove a pattern of behavior.
• Although not performed below, ULTRA can be configured to automatically reprioritize (lower)
websites whose domain names have been revoked or where no webpage is served.
ULTRA is also capable of
catching domain name
registrations including
misspellings of trademarks.
The lack of a checkmark
indicates that the site is no
longer active.
10. Monitor other’s use of owned trademarks
• ULTRA allows users to monitor use of company/client-owned trademarks by others and identify use (i)
not in keeping with trademark guidelines or (ii) by potentially unauthorized parties. Users can view both
archived and live pages and with a single click determine who owns the website in question.
12. Sample screen shots – reports
Use the built-in
dashboard…
…or build smaller,
custom reports
13. Sample Screen Shots - Patents
Automatically monitor
developments in your space…
…while managing
company-owned
patents
14. Developments 2007
• Websites found by the domain name gazette crawler will automatically categorize its
findings as parked, parked with advertisements, commerce, commentary, or other; sorting,
prioritizing, and/or filtering on this field will be possible
• Domain name registrants who have been involved in arbitration will be flagged in the domain
name gazette crawler. Users will also be able directly to access an up-to-date ULTRA-
maintained database of all gTLD and ccTLD domain name arbitrations
• Users will be able to view a list of all eBay users who sell their products (rather than auctions
in which their products are sold) and sort by selling price, volume, and/or feedback rating
• Users will be able to automatically generate cease-and-desist letters with mild, medium, or
strong language that are automatically populated with the domain name registrant’s
information and, if desired, the company’s own trademark information
• A case management system that permits users to track the progress of enforcement actions
• Gazette crawler notification whenever an owned patent or prior art of an owned patent is
identified in a new patent application
• More robust user-facing filtering systems and inflammatory content identification algorithms
However, we find that our customers typically provide the best suggestions for future
product enhancements, and we work aggressively with them to add their desired
features to the ULTRA ASP Service.
15. Biography: Edward Fenster, CEO
Previously, Edward served as Director of Corporate Development at Asurion Corporation, the leading provider of
insurance and enhanced services to more than 50 million wireless subscribers in the United States and Asia.
With 2005 revenues in excess of $700 million, the company has generated explosive organic growth of nearly
65% on a five-year compounded basis. Edward was responsible for identifying, structuring, and executing
opportunities to expand into new sectors through both acquisitions and business development. He orchestrated
new business initiatives in the areas of satellite radio and DSL as well as engineered Asurion’s purchase of
Warranty Corporation of America. He also launched the firm's long-term financial planning activities.
Prior to his time at Asurion, Edward spent over four years at The Blackstone Group, the world’s largest private
investor, principally in the firm’s Private Equity group. While at Blackstone, Edward completed a dozen
acquisitions, divestitures, and restructurings valued at over $10 billion, including companies headquartered in six
countries and spanning industries including telecommunications, biotechnology, software, industrials, and
consumer and financial services. He also introduced Blackstone to the management team that the firm tapped to
run a group of under-performing television stations acquired from Emmis Communications Corp.
Edward has also held roles at Bloomberg, L.P., in the information technology group of Citigroup Inc., and in the
investment banking division of Needham & Company, Inc. In addition, he serves as Advisory Partner to
Millennium Technology Value Partners, L.P., a private equity firm formed to provide investors with liquidity on
their venture capital holdings, non-core operations, and other generally illiquid assets.
Edward graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and a minor in Computer Science from The Johns
Hopkins University, where he also taught C and C++ programming. He is currently completing the Masters in
Business Administration program at Stanford University.
16. Prior to co-founding Navastream, Altura was Chief Sales Officer for Germany’s leading IT Security
and Hardware Encryption manufacturer Biodata Information Technology AG. Altura was
responsible for OEM, Strategic Alliances and general worldwide sales and marketing of Biodata
AG products including Encryption, Firewall, Brand Protection and Image Search. Altura joined
Biodata AG after the company he founded, AB Systems Inc., specializing in high-speed voice and
video-over-IP encryption was acquired by Biodata AG in 1999.
Prior to founding AB Systems, Altura was director of International Sales and Marketing for Biodata
AG’s predecessor Biodata GmbH in Lichtenfels, Germany where he grew sales from less than
$200,000 to more than $24 million.
Altura holds a B.S. in Economics and Art History and Masters in Computer Science from
University of Maryland, University College in Heidelberg, Germany. Altura is an avid
Cryptographer and served in the United Sates Army’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps.
He also serves on the advisory board of The Camelot Group, Takima Entertainment and has
raced in the Trans-Siberian winter Road Rally race where his Team Takima took first place in
March 2003.
Biography: Altura Ewers, COO/SVP
