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Project Paperless, LLC

Project Paperless, LLC is a Virginia-based limited liability company. Without any significant assets, employees, or operations, Project Paperless, LLC appears to be nothing more than a shell company. Project Paperless, LLC’s business seems to be acquiring patents related to copiers/scanners and bringing patent infringement claims, one after another, against a multitude of small businesses that use network scanners. These companies have limited resources to fight a patent claim and therefore quickly agree to settle out of court for what may be tens of thousands of dollars each. Shell companies that make nothing, have no customers, provide little of value to society, and procure patents with the sole objective of making money by prosecuting other companies with infringement lawsuits have been referred to as patent trolls.

According to 2012 records at the Virgina State Corporation Commission, Project Paperless, LLC is headquartered in a two bedroom condo in Alexandria, Virginia. Tax records indicate that this condo is owned by a DC patent attorney, a former associate at the Atlanta law firm of Hill, Kertscher & Wharton. Project Paperless LLC’s Articles of Organization shows that the organizer of the LLC is Lucas Geren, who is currently an attorney at the Atlanta law firm of Hill, Kertscher & Wharton.



Who Owns Project Paperless LLC?

According to financial disclosure required by the courts when lawsuits are filed, Project Paperless, LLC appears to be owned not by individuals, but by another layer of apparent shell companies: PCB Intellectual Properties, LLC; Renaissance Group IP Holdings, LLC; Wexford Holdings LLC; Bonita Sunrise LLC; and Mobile Micromedia Solutions, LLC. Several of these companies appear to be owned and/or managed by one or more members of the Atlanta law firm of Hill, Kertscher, & Wharton. Based on these documents, the following diagram shows relationships between Project Paperless LLC, the Law Firm of Hill Kertscher & Wharton and several of these LLCs. Patent trolls may use this shell within a shell as a way to protect personal assets and to obfuscate financial relationships.

Hill, Kertscher, and Wharton and Project Paperless, LLC

Public records indicate that each of the partners in the law firm of Hill, Kertscher, & Wharton are either managers, members, or organizers in one or more of the shell companies which in turn appear to have a stake in Project Paperless, LLC. In some sense, the attorneys would appear to be their own client. If so, they make money not just in the legal fees they are charging to Project Paperless LLC, but also in the settlement money that goes to Project Paperless, LLC. These settlement fees can be tens of thousands of dollars per company. With a limitless supply of small businesses unable to fight against an infringement patent lawsuit and forced economically to settle out of court, Project Paperless LLC may be a virtual gold mine for Steven G. Hill, Douglas R. Kertscher, and Scott A. Wharton. Better than a gold mine – as all the digging is done with just a letter and a few phone calls.