4 ms·

Thats actually a good idea. What would be the requirements? It might be an interesting weekend project for me!

raquo 16y ago
You need stuff like patent numbers in question, the companies involved, industries, categories, links to relevant news stories and blog posts, etc. People should be able to submit what they know (you don't want to gather all this info yourself, apart from some initial pile so that the site does not look empty). The website should be easy to use for 1) bloggers/journalists finding out about stories about blatant trolling 2) victims to report their case and find other victims affected by it (automatic search by patent number, trolling company name, etc) Note that victims will not look for your website in particular unless you're really popular. You have to create a lot of pages for each patent number, each company name, so that google picks them up and they come up on the first page when searching for patent number for example. This is unfortunately too much for simply a weekend project. The technology is trivial but getting traction with such a website, bringing it to the attention of major blogs and news outlets is the main work to be done.
- ericb 16y ago
  An area for estimated economic damage in the incident reports (broken out by legal costs, code changes, abandoned projects, etc.) would help reporters and politicians find some jaw-dropping stats to quote.
- roc 16y ago
  You'd also want to consider making a company ownership hierarchy. Most patent trolls work through a dizzying number of shell companies.
- al_james 16y ago
  >>he technology is trivial but getting traction with such a website, bringing it to the attention of major blogs and news outlets is the main work to be done. Like always! ;) A more pressing question is: Is there any possible legal repercussions of building such a site. I live and host in the UK if that makes any difference.
- cousin_it 16y ago
  The obvious way to implement this project would be a wiki. I googled a little and found a specialized wiki that already has the beginnings of such a project: http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Patent_trolls http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Patent_trolls So those of you who really want to help the world could go there and participate.
- al_james 16y ago
  As someone else pointed out, this site exists: http://endsoftpatents.org/ http://endsoftpatents.org/ Does that cover your idea?
- raquo 16y ago
  It now also occurred to me that location of the victim and abuser is also important. City or state at least.
AndrewMoffat 16y ago
How about a vote-up mechanism to bring the most ridiculous patents to the top?

raquo 16y ago

You need stuff like patent numbers in question, the companies involved, industries, categories, links to relevant news stories and blog posts, etc. People should be able to submit what they know (you don't want to gather all this info yourself, apart from some initial pile so that the site does not look empty). The website should be easy to use for 1) bloggers/journalists finding out about stories about blatant trolling 2) victims to report their case and find other victims affected by it (automatic search by patent number, trolling company name, etc) Note that victims will not look for your website in particular unless you're really popular. You have to create a lot of pages for each patent number, each company name, so that google picks them up and they come up on the first page when searching for patent number for example. This is unfortunately too much for simply a weekend project. The technology is trivial but getting traction with such a website, bringing it to the attention of major blogs and news outlets is the main work to be done.

ericb 16y ago
An area for estimated economic damage in the incident reports (broken out by legal costs, code changes, abandoned projects, etc.) would help reporters and politicians find some jaw-dropping stats to quote.
roc 16y ago
You'd also want to consider making a company ownership hierarchy. Most patent trolls work through a dizzying number of shell companies.
al_james 16y ago
>>he technology is trivial but getting traction with such a website, bringing it to the attention of major blogs and news outlets is the main work to be done. Like always! ;) A more pressing question is: Is there any possible legal repercussions of building such a site. I live and host in the UK if that makes any difference.
cousin_it 16y ago
The obvious way to implement this project would be a wiki. I googled a little and found a specialized wiki that already has the beginnings of such a project: http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Patent_trolls http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Patent_trolls So those of you who really want to help the world could go there and participate.
al_james 16y ago
As someone else pointed out, this site exists: http://endsoftpatents.org/ http://endsoftpatents.org/ Does that cover your idea?
raquo 16y ago
It now also occurred to me that location of the victim and abuser is also important. City or state at least.

AndrewMoffat 16y ago

How about a vote-up mechanism to bring the most ridiculous patents to the top?