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Trying to find other companies under the same threat is a great approach. In a similar situation, this allowed my company to fight a patent troll and share cos
by jannotti 9y ago
Trying to find other companies under the same threat is a great approach. In a similar situation, this allowed my company to fight a patent troll and share costs, so we didn't cave under the, "It'll cost us this much in legal fees anyway" argument.
- rhcom2 9y agoThis is the strategy that helped defeat the patent on podcasting. Also I would contact the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
- durkie 9y agoAgreed! We found a great lawyer through eff for our own patent troll case.
- Kelbit 9y agoWhile it doesn't help in this case (since there is already a looming legal threat from an NPE), you can buy patent troll insurance now: https://www.rpxcorp.com/ https://www.rpxcorp.com/. This covers your legal fees in the event of litigation, which can scare off a patent troll who just wants a hit-and-run settlement.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- DenisM 9y agoDo you know what's the ballpark cost by any chance?
- williamstein 9y agoI got a quote from them 2 or 3 years ago for a company and the amount was for $7K/year. RPX said they came up with the price based on the likely danger of patent trolls to this company, so I don't know if the price they would quote now or to another company would be the same.
- staticautomatic 9y agoThat's pretty reasonable compared to the litigation costs.
- kelnos 9y agoIt is ridiculously disheartening that this sort of thing even has to exist. It's just taking the money you'd be forced to pay some exploitative patent troll, and giving it (well, probably/hopefully less of it, but still) to an exploitative insurance firm instead.
- gowld 9y agoThe insurance firm isn't exploitative. The patent troll is actively harmfully attacking people. The insurance firm (assuming they aren't secretly creating demand for their product) is mitigating the damage. Locksmiths and firefighters aren't exploitative.
- roganartu 9y agoInsurance doesn't mitigate damage, it amortizes it (typically across a group of entities). The expected average annual claims on an insurer's policies need to be lower than the sum of the premiums or the insurer loses money. This is why people in high risk categories pay more for insurance (eg young people and people with high performance cars have higher car insurance premiums because statistically they crash more often and/or have higher rates of total loss)
- cestith 9y ago> The expected average annual claims on an insurer's policies need to be lower than the sum of the premiums or the insurer loses money. All this time I thought they invested the float.
- Ma8ee 9y agoWell, yes and no. For the single insured it is there to mitigate damages that otherwise would be catastrophic. I hope that I will lose money by buying insurance, because that means nothing really bad happened to me.
- Retric 9y agoIn this case it does because someone with insurance is a poor target for patent trolls. Assuming it becomes common you get 'herd immunity' as patent trolls become less effective which also lowers the cost of the insurance.
- EvanAnderson 9y agoI wonder if they patented the "business process" of selling insurance against patent trolls.
- PaulAJ 9y agoTwo problems: First, you won't be able to get insurance for this case, because it predates your policy. A bit like getting fire insurance when your house is already on fire. Second, an insurance company won't just write you a blank cheque for legal fees, they will take over the case and look for the cheapest way out, which will probably be settlement.
- rocqua 9y agoAn insurance company dedicated to patent trolls might have a policy of fighting every case in court. If you have the resources to back up this threat, it means patent trolls are much less likely to actually go to court. Hence, specific insurance against patent trolls could work by effectively taking away the easy targets for patent trolls. It's a bit like home-insurance companies that offer discounts on good locks to keep out thieves. Everyone except for the criminals are better off afterwards.
- Kelbit 9y agoYes, hence why I pointed out it didn't help in this case (there's already an NPE demanding license fees). I don't know if the second point is a big deal. Even if they choose to settle, you've still mitigated your risk without going to court. And I suspect a patent litigation insurance agency is going to be motivated to negotiate very small settlements and/or actually fight it out in court, lest they gain a reputation as the company that hands out license fees.
- danvoell 9y agoIsn't this what they did on Silicon Valley?
- viraptor 9y agoYes, although with bad result of the other companies negotiating lower fees and throwing the protagonist under the bus. (If I remember correctly) I hope that in real world there would be some legal paperwork ensuring this doesn't happen.
- maaarghk 9y agoI noticed the response from Playsaurus' attorney, as well as stating why CH2 is not infringing, lays out arguments suggesting the 838 patent should not be valid. I'm curious if someone familiar with the matter happens to be reading - is there any provision in the system for Playsaurus to now have the case taken the court regardless of the fact GTX did not infact file a lawsuit, i.e. attempt to have it invalidated even if GTX drop the threat of the lawsuit? Or would they need to piggy back / support one of the other companies listed in this blog?
- rhizome 9y agoSee here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaratory_judgment#Declaratory_judgment_actions_in_patent_litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaratory_judgment#Declarato...
- amahani 9y agoYes, you can seek a declaratory action in federal court, and more recently, you can seek to invalidate with the USPTO's PTAB through an inter partes review (IPR).
- josaka 9y agoYes. They would arguably have standing to bring a declaratory judgment action, asking a court to invalidate the patent. They should also look for (now relatively common) state law provisions that provide damages for bad faith demand letters.
- jrochkind1 9y agoThat would be pretty expensive though. Is why nearly any non-huge company is going to take someone dropping their claim as a huge victory, and not try to go to court anyway.
- scarmig 9y agoThere should be some kind of patent troll clearinghouse. Companies can check it to see if other companies are reporting the same shakedown tactics for a given patent. Though, could a patent troll could get around that by spacing out the trolling? So by the time any company finds another company that's been trolled, they've already paid it up and don't have as much incentive to fight the patent troll after the fact. They could even offer a "discount" conditional upon mandatory non-disclosure of the legal threat.
- PhasmaFelis 9y ago> Though, could a patent troll could get around that by spacing out the trolling? So by the time any company finds another company that's been trolled, they've already paid it up and don't have as much incentive to fight the patent troll after the fact. That's still a minor win, since it mitigates the amount of damage the trolls can do per unit time.
- deeg 9y agoAccording to the OA there's only two years left on the patent. Spacing them out would at least limit the number of small companies targeted.
- matttah 9y agoThat's a great idea...perhaps a quick weekend project there we'll talk on!
- cortesoft 9y agoAs a sister comment pointed out, thankfully it has already been done! https://trollingeffects.org/ https://trollingeffects.org/
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- mchannon 9y agohttps://trollingeffects.org https://trollingeffects.org