3 ms·

"Random engineer", or guy who sold a company for $130M after a patent-induced nightmare? https://www.wired.com/story/eric-swildens-uber-waymo-lawsuit-patent/ ht

• isatty 8y ago
  Doesn’t matter - he saw something anyone with EE101 should’ve spotted from the rewrite, stuck with his guns for no personal gain and won. I would love to have that much attention to detail (or even in the interest in reading through the patent).
  • writepub 8y ago
    It matters. Of all possible patents to invalidate, why this one? Uber - one of the world's most valuable private companies, doesn't need help with patent law.
    • TeMPOraL 8y ago
      Possible explanation: because this guy doesn't spend his day looking for patents to challenge; he read about that particular one on the news due to Waymo vs Uber case, and decided to take a look at it, only to notice it's bullshit. That's the official story, but it also sounds pretty plausible.
    • drakenot 8y ago
      Apparently they do considering they hadn’t submitted their own reexamination request of the patent in question that inevitably led to Waymo dropping the patent claim.
• fourthark 8y ago
  He visited two of [Uber's] buildings in San Francisco before being directed to its headquarters, where he was met with skepticism by a security guard. “I explained that I had filed an ex parte reexamination on my own and Waymo had had it for two weeks already and it didn’t seem fair that Uber didn’t have it, given it was going to trial,” explains Swildens. “But I felt the guy thought I was some crazy person who just came in off the street.”
• unreal37 8y ago
  He had at least 2 other cofounders, and the company had raised $50 Million from investors. He didn't get much of that $130 million.