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Ask HN: What should I do about potential patent trouble?
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Edit:
I thought keeping this pseudo-anonymous would make it less of a drama post. A few friends have suggested otherwise:
http://backtrackapp.com is my app. It's a location tracking app with a web front end and social features. I only built this for the realtime web component, which hasn't been implemented yet. You'll read about this (and why) below.
http://glympse.com is the app filing for the patent.
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Dear HN,
A few weeks ago, I launched my first iPhone app. I am new to the mobile space and to ObjC, so I figured this would be good, fun exercise in building something I wanted to use myself and turning into a product. With ios4 out, the main premise behind the app seemed like a good idea, and nobody else was doing it yet. So I found a trusted friend, and we built the app and companion website in just under three weeks, part time. We waited the standard two weeks to get approved by Apple, and since then, the app has been chugging along for the past couple of weeks with a few sales here and there. We're about to start marketing the app, and we expect sales to increase.
We're also planning on updating the app with a few new substantial features. One of these features is the actual killer feature I dreamed the app up for. We decided to scrap it from the first release because the app was full featured enough, we were suffering from mild feature creep, and life was about to get in the way (I had conferences and work deadlines, and we were both moving soon).
So what's the problem? A new app has come out that does exactly what our killer feature does. Read: This app does exactly what I built my app for, except my app doesn't even do it yet. Imagine how I feel. It's getting tons of great press, with publications raving about how amazing that feature is, how nothing even comes close, how it's revolutionary in its place, and blah blah blah. That's fine, I'm disappointed at my failure to execute fast enough and be first to market, and as such losing out on press and sales, etc etc; but that's just the life of an entrepreneur: learn and move on.
I can live with all of that. The problem is that the new app's website claims they're actually patenting this feature. This I can't get over. My first instinct was to go to uspto.gov and start searching for the application so I could submit an attack on it, somehow. However.. I can't even find it.
So I'm at a loss of what to do.
My gut says to just get the update with the new feature out as soon as possible, so there's a competitor out, and just let the patent process run its course. I'm sure this is not the best thing to do. I'm not sure if it's appropriate to spend tons of time searching the patent applications for something that may or may not even be patented. I don't want to pivot away from this feature, I think my implementation of it will be much better and more attractive than this competitor. And I'm definitely nowhere near ready to roll over and play dead.
So, if you were in my shoes, how would you approach this? Is this even a problem? Or if it becomes one, should I just deal with it as it comes?
- tomjen3 16y agoI wouldn't worry too much about patents - it would cost them a lot more to run a suit against you than they stand to make, but obviously their willingness to patent things should be taken into account as evidence of a lack of morals in any future business with them.
- mattmanser 16y agoA lack of morals? That's a bit immature.
- hvs 16y agoAgreed. The IP situation in the U.S. sucks, but if you don't play the game, you are going to be burned by the people that do. Getting a patent doesn't make you a patent troll.
- davidu 16y agoBusinesses patent things for a variety of reasons; it may be a stupid system but it's more stupid not to participate in it.
- GiraffeNecktie 16y agoClaiming you have patents (when you don't) is a bit like putting those 50 cent stickers on your basement windows that say "Protected by 24 hour armed emergency response". It's enough to discourage the casual or underfunded challenge.
- Lukeas14 16y agoIts also illegal.
- davidu 16y agoHow do you know they've filed a ptent on it? Just saying it on a website doesn't make it true. Also, applications won't show up for at least a year. That said, you have a year to get your patent in from when you first launched your service, so you should do that. No wait, what you really need to do is talk to a patent lawyer so he/she can guide you to resolve this. He/she might suggest you patent your original idea, and then later file an additional patent on this idea that is tied back to the original. There is a lot of patent strategy that can help you here, but talking about it publicly is not really one of them.