From my interview this week with the Connecticut Law Tribune:

“(MTA Spokesman Aaron) Donovan said that MTA welcomes development of “innovative applications” that make it easier for riders to access train information.”

Based on my experience with MTA, this is complete BS.

As Ron Coleman, IP lawyer and Goetz Fitzpatick and author of the IP blog LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION® has asserted, MTA is much more interested in ‘rent-seeking’ than ‘actually helping people get around’.

From my experience and discussions with other developers and MTA C&D recipients, I can attest 100% that this is the case, without reservation.

MTA Marketing is a licensing and litigation machine – engaging developers to create accurate and powerful mobile applications for passengers is absolutely NOT a priority for them.

Part of this is because the same people responsible for licensing a subway coffee mug are the same people working with developers on mobile apps – until my case, believe me, that department really did not understand the importance and requirements for success between the two.

This is MTA’s behavior, this is the policy MTA exercises daily – not the policy Aaron Donovan attempts to assert.

MTA, compared to almost every other transit agency in the US, is a developer’s worst nightmare.

I actively pursued a license agreement with MTA for 6 months – I was calling THEM, for the most part MTA marketing had stopped returning my calls and emails entirely.

My return to discussion with Mark was only achieved through MTA backchannels.

When I got the license and brought up terms which needed negotiation, I was flatly refused and immediately (falsely) told that my app and website were infringing on MTA intellectual property and needed to come down or face cease and desist, period.

There was no negotiation on their end on this – when I asked them for new disclaimer language or changes I needed to make to be in compliance, I was flatly refused – they insisted the ONLY negotiation was that I sign the license or take down my app and website, period.

To add insult to injury, the C&D to Apple insisted that *I* was the party unwilling to negotiate.

THAT IS NOT ‘WELCOMING INNOVATIVE APPLICATIONS’

That is ‘THE OPPOSITE’ of ‘WELCOMING INNOVATIVE APPLICATIONS’.

MTA never gave me a hard time about my app before I received the contract, we had a working good-faith relationship.

ALL of the litigation which has followed is a direct retaliation to my expressing objection to the affordability and schedule update policy of the license.

That was my reward for working with MTA.

Period.

It has cost myself and my family nearly $3000 in lost sales and legal fees in order to have professional attorneys attempt to break down the cease and desist sent to Apple and StationStops so that they can advise me as to the legal status of their claims.

I have had multiple IP attorneys, law professors and students review my C&D, and they are in agreement that in the very best case, its poorly authored and does not even specify what intellectual property I was infringing on.

Personally, I believe the C&D was made to be purposefully ambiguous as there was no legal basis.

Unfortunately, since IP law is such an expensive and complicated legal practice, it was impossible for me to represent myself without expending money on specifically skilled counsel.

This is EXACTLY what MTA legal counted on when they sent me the cease and desist – they know the cost of defending oneself against IP fraud, so they sent me the cease and desist expecting me to take my ball and go home, as countless other of their C&D recipients have done.

This is what Brooklyn Law Professor Jason Mazzone describes as copyfraud.

MTA never sued me, but they knew in order to protect myself from their C&D, I would need to undertake expensive legal counseling.

I will not and cannot give MTA ANY money for what they have done to me – it was false, misleading, and unprofessional behavior.

They owe StationStops a public apology for their past false IP claims and a written retraction of both cease and desists – I have asked for it several times in writing over the past couple of weeks – MTA has stopped responding to my emails altogether.

That would the ‘starting point’ of ‘welcoming innovative applications’.

Because the #1 thing developers are asking of MTA right now is EVIDENCE, not SPOKESMAN propaganda, that ‘MTA won’t take legal action against me if I seek working with them on innovative applications’.