You probably receive Business Briefs via email. The majority of our readers receive an electronic copy. Have you considered who invented e-mail?

The inventor of e-mail was recently the subject of a United States District Court lawsuit in the District of Massachusetts. The Court dismissed the case of Ayyadurai v. TechDirt. Shiva Ayyadurai claimed he invented e-mail and that the blog TechDirt, its founder and one of its writers, defamed him by calling him a “liar” and “charlatan” for making the claim. In the action, TechDirt acknowledged that Ayyadurai had invented an electronic mail system in 1979 at the age of 14 that had been patented. However, it was not the first electronic mail system. Thus, TechDirt concluded Ayyadurai’s claim that he was the inventor of e-mail was “fake”, “fraudulent” and “bogus.”

The Court concluded TechDirt disputed “whether plaintiff should properly be characterized as the inventor of e-mail based on that [1979] creation.” It determined “whether plaintiff’s claim to have invented e-mail is ‘fake’ depends upon the operative definition of ‘e-mail’. Because that definition does not have a single, objectively correct answer, the claim is incapable of being proved true or false.”

Thus, the Court concluded TechDirt’s statements were protected since they were subjective opinion. The claims:

“are not provably false, are subjective statements that do not imply knowledge of objective facts, or are statements involving figurative language or hyperbole…One person may consider a claim to be ‘fake’ if any element of it is not true or if it involves a slight twisting of the facts, while another person may only consider a claim to be ‘fake’ only if no element of it is true.”

Stay tuned, however, this one may not be over, Ayyadurai released the following statement vowing to appeal:
Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai will be appealing today’s ruling. Dr. Ayyadurai has a long history of standing up for free speech. As a strong proponent of free speech, he also believes in truthful speech. False speech is not protected by the Constitution, and TechDirt’s false and malicious speech about Dr. Ayyadurai should receive no legal protection.

So, who invented e-mail? Your guess is as good as ours.

The information presented is not intended to be, and does not constitute, “legal advice.” Because each situation varies, and only brief summary information is provided here, you should not use this information as a basis for action unless you have independently verified with your own counsel that it applies to your particular situation.