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I have actually reviewed this man's supposedly vigilante's submission to the USPTO and it is clear that this story is not what it seems. The document is a highl

I have actually reviewed this man's supposedly vigilante's submission to the USPTO and it is clear that this story is not what it seems. The document is a highly professional 95+ page document of complex legal argumentation that only a law firm with a small team of lawyers with a lot of prior experience doing this could have put together. It contains lots of lawyer speak and contemporary argumentation that a lay person would simple not have knowledge of. As much as people are keen to believe the vigilante narrative, there is zero chance that is what happened here. Instead, he was used as a 'strawman' by a company with much deeper pockets to attack Waymo's key patent. I estimate that this actually cost around $100k to prepare and file.

pentae 8y ago
Perhaps thats where the $6000 of his own money was spent, having a lawyer/lawyer friend edit his document into legal speak?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- chongli 8y ago
  I would've thought the $6000 only covered the cost of filing the challenge with the PTO.
calcifer 8y ago
It is really funny that a conspiracy theory posted by an anonymous person with no backing evidence whatsoever is sitting at the top of this thread.
- endymi0n 8y ago
  It's funny how I seriously can't tell whether you mean the comment or the article on top of this thread.
  - calcifer 8y ago
    Fine, I'll bite. The person mentioned in the article is not anonymous, his name, credentials and motivation are all publicly stated. None of which applies to the GP.
    - endymi0n 8y ago
      Granted. s/seriously/almost/g would have been more appropriate
- coldtea 8y ago
  It's as if people can still think for themselves and make arguments from the available information (even if they prove to be wrong), instead of expecting the final story to be handed down to them... The reference to the "95+ page document of complex legal argumentation"? That's evidence in support of the claim in the comment. Parent didn't make up that it's a complex lengthy legal document themselves. Sure, the theory that he was a strawman might or might not pan out. But that this is no simple "engineer vigilante" is evident. Perhaps it's a very organized vigilante with big resources (and the money mentioned also point to that). But such a move is not above suspicion of some other corporate entity being involved. Should anybody thinking so just keep it to themselves? Or are people that might agree at fault if they vote such a comment up?
  - simias 8y ago
    The original poster doesn't provide any substantive evidence of what they're claiming (since then they've posted a link to the document without further discussion). They have an account with very little activity so we don't really know who they are or how knowledgeable (and how biased) they are on these issues. I think some skepticism is very much warranted and I don't understand why their comment sits at the top of the thread. They're not making "arguments from the available information", they're just making a statement without providing evidence. >But that this is no simple "engineer vigilante" is evident It is not to me. It's plausible that he might not be but I haven't seen a conclusive demonstration either and I'd sooner trust Ars over "some anonymous poster on HN who says it's not true". I tried reading the PDF provided and I found it very obtuse and verbose, but then again so are patent applications as far as I'm concerned. I'm genuinely incapable of judging the level of skill and dedication required to create something like that. If you are I'd very much like to hear about it instead of throwing vague accusations. Is is that implausible that a skilled engineer used to dealing with patents could come up with something like that on their own or with only minor outside help?
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- golergka 8y ago
  Many users of this site are used to evaluate comments on merit alone, without ever bothering to check who the comment author is. I personally don't think it's that bad of a situation.
- rando444 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_the_stone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_the_stone If you're going to argue against an assertion, you should include an argument.
  - mtarnovan 8y ago
    The argument was implicit: he called it a conspiracy theory. A conspiracy theory is an explanation of an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy [...] without credible evidence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory
    - rando444 8y ago
      That's not an argument. You should look at the example in the wikipedia article I posted. The poster formed an opinion based on observations and gave his reasons for doing so. If you disagree with his observations, the best way to do so is to provide your reasons for disagreeing with his analysis.
      - ectospheno 8y ago
        What analysis? OP basically said "these words are big" and from that determined it was written by others.
- robdachshund 8y ago
  It's really funny that you assume an article is objectively true
ObsoleteNerd 8y ago
Or he hired a law firm to write it for him? Not far fetched.
- Buge 8y ago
  He said he paid $6k, and that he considers the money well spent. It seems weird that he would pay $100k and then claim to have paid $6k.
  - deadbunny 8y ago
    Where are you getting 100k from?
    - JshWright 8y ago
      That is the amount suggested (with zero evidence) by the original comment in this thread.
  - bobjordan 8y ago
    Well, $6K is a pretty good deal, considering I paid over $15K so far for an associate level patent lawyer to finally submit a 49-page provisional utility patent. Now, there is still a ton of work we need to do to go back and clean that shit up. Basically, he just photocopied everything plus the kitchen sink to get it filed. I know I have at least that bill amount waiting on us before we finally get it issued.
greenleafjacob 8y ago
Can you share the document?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- discjockeydom 8y ago
  Try this link: https://openload.co/f/RjnRdy-K4zM/90020113.pdf https://openload.co/f/RjnRdy-K4zM/90020113.pdf
pmorici 8y ago
If you are willing to sink the time into it it it not impossible for a smart person to do legal work that appears to require a professional lawyer.
- fapjacks 8y ago
  Actually, I am pretty good friends with a civil engineer that did something almost exactly like this for a friend of his. He did this in his spare time and having no prior experience with the niche industry and law his friend's company operated in (botanical health supplements). The people from the federal government involved in the complaint did not believe he wasn't a specialized lawyer with a team of assistants. Do not underestimate the capacity of an engineer scorned.
  - choonway 8y ago
    if a dedicated civil engineer can pick up some law books and make it seem he was some high powered lawyer team, can a dedicated lawyer pick up some engineering books and build a bridge that can survive SF's 'Big One'?
    - Ush2iaph 8y ago
      Maybe? A wooden pedestrian bridge with seismic shift absorbers like pagodas have seems feasible for a 1-man job, given enough time.
    - turtlecloud 8y ago
      Because of the internet - information is much more readily available. Nowadays a layman can just search all the information and perform similarly.
    - murukesh_s 8y ago
      Don't know about the bridge but he can definitely build the next Facebook.
    - snowwrestler 8y ago
      Seems to me he could almost certainly design a bridge with resistance to failure due to an earthquake. The material and principles involved in designing earthquake resistant structures are well understood and publicly available. The primary constraints on such structures are the cost and time to build them. As for surviving "the big one"... it depends on how big? I'm not sure humanity in general knows how to build a bridge that could survive a dozen meters of shift between its piers. But that is a possibility in the largest conceivable earthquakes.
haser_au 8y ago
I think this story does an injustice by calling him an 'engineer'. He cofounded Speedera Networks, which was acquired for $130m by Akamai after a 3-year patent battle, a battle he was on the front-line of and learnt a lot about patent infringement. Yes, he's an engineer, but he's also an engineer who knows more than the average engineer about patents and complex legal argumentation. Source: https://www.wired.com/story/eric-swildens-uber-waymo-lawsuit-patent/ https://www.wired.com/story/eric-swildens-uber-waymo-lawsuit...
- true_religion 8y ago
  It is not a deservice. Its indicative of how poorly we view our own profession that everyone with other skills must be more than engineer, merely by applying them. A lawyer who becomes mayor is still a lawyer. A doctor who runs a phamacology company is still a doctor. And yes, and engineer who founds a company still retains the core skills and prestige of their hardwon profession. Or at least, I think they should.
  - sdenton4 8y ago
    Hardwon profession: Three weeks in a boot camp followed by two years on the bloody frontlines of the Framework Wars...
    - mLuby 8y ago
      I support our troops.
    - true_religion 8y ago
      To be fair, when you become a doctor it is because your peers grant you the title, not merely due to your GPA. Outside the US, engineering is the same. Within the US, there is no formal board for software engineerig but we can at least informally say one is an engineer if other engineers would recognize them as such. I know people whom graduated bootcamps and could qualify as engineers, albiet inexperienced ones, and those who have finished 4 years of schooling but cannot practice engineering. The guy in the article was inducted into the Academy of Science and Engineering at 34. Whether that makes him pretigious or not isn't the question, but there is no doubt in my mind that he is an engineer.
akavel 8y ago
The Ars article omitted an important background note about the guy, that he sold a company for $120M at one point, and that it was "cheaply" because he was forced to do so by a lost patent dispute: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18119018 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18119018
femto 8y ago
Elsewhere it's mentioned that Swildens was on the receiving end of a 3 year battle over patent infringement, where he was a founder and so intimately involved. After an apprenticeship like that it would be unsurprising if he could emulate a team of lawyers.
- gota 8y ago
  I was about to comment something similar. I've myself worked with patent lawyers and can emulate their speech to some extent.
- groby_b 8y ago
  "Our marketing person sat in the room with engineers for 3 years. It's no wonder they can now emulate a team of engineers" The amount by which engineering egos are inflated is amazing. Guess what - being a lawyer takes a bit more work than being on a legal case for three years. Why, as opposed to engineers, there's actually a bar they are held to.
  - apendleton 8y ago
    Sure, but the claim here isn't that the person passed the bar or is a lawyer, just that they were able to produce a lawyer-like document requiring knowledge of one specific subset of the law that they happen to have had lots of exposure to in their regular job. Sometimes marketing people that sit with the engineers actually learn to code. It has happened at my company. Do they have all the skills someone who got a CS degree would have? Maybe not. Do they have some subset of those skills necessary for the particular tasks the team is faced with daily at this company? Sure.
  - cmorgan31 8y ago
    You can take the legal documentation from the previous patent battle to see how to frame arguments. It's not uncommon for intellectual property and patent attorneys to dabble in their area of expertise to better understand both the exceptions raised by experts and form arguments that experts understand. My wife asks for advice all the time on how to phrase key points because at the end of the day they are trying to make compelling arguments. Do you really think it's impossible a founder and engineer who went through a three year battle over patents could form a similar document? You'd only have to understand the assertions and have an attorney review your work. There are tons of legal reviews which end up with only one person being listed while the others are not given attribution to the document.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
simias 8y ago
Can you give some more specifics? What are your credentials exactly? You only have three comments in five years on your account, all related to patent discussions but no context as to who you are exactly.
ageofwant 8y ago
Goodness yes, everybody knows that a mere engineer can never be a clever lawyer. Except perhaps patent lawyers, which in most jurisdictions have both engineering and lawyering degrees. Or perhaps just a motivated company founder with 4 years of expertise fighting patents. Pretty far fetched I know, but perhaps one should keep a open mind...
- coldtea 8y ago
  >Goodness yes, everybody knows that a mere engineer can never be a clever lawyer. Sure, an engineer can be a lawyer (there's no law of physics against it). But it's also much less often than this happens than an engineer NOT being a lawyer. That's the parent's argument, not that it's impossible.
  - apendleton 8y ago
    Well, sure, but most engineers don't regularly submit patent challenges. This engineer is not typical.
lawrenceyan 8y ago
The plot thickens...

pentae 8y ago

Perhaps thats where the $6000 of his own money was spent, having a lawyer/lawyer friend edit his document into legal speak?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
chongli 8y ago
I would've thought the $6000 only covered the cost of filing the challenge with the PTO.

calcifer 8y ago

It is really funny that a conspiracy theory posted by an anonymous person with no backing evidence whatsoever is sitting at the top of this thread.

endymi0n 8y ago
It's funny how I seriously can't tell whether you mean the comment or the article on top of this thread.
- calcifer 8y ago
  Fine, I'll bite. The person mentioned in the article is not anonymous, his name, credentials and motivation are all publicly stated. None of which applies to the GP.
  - endymi0n 8y ago
    Granted. s/seriously/almost/g would have been more appropriate
coldtea 8y ago
It's as if people can still think for themselves and make arguments from the available information (even if they prove to be wrong), instead of expecting the final story to be handed down to them... The reference to the "95+ page document of complex legal argumentation"? That's evidence in support of the claim in the comment. Parent didn't make up that it's a complex lengthy legal document themselves. Sure, the theory that he was a strawman might or might not pan out. But that this is no simple "engineer vigilante" is evident. Perhaps it's a very organized vigilante with big resources (and the money mentioned also point to that). But such a move is not above suspicion of some other corporate entity being involved. Should anybody thinking so just keep it to themselves? Or are people that might agree at fault if they vote such a comment up?
- simias 8y ago
  The original poster doesn't provide any substantive evidence of what they're claiming (since then they've posted a link to the document without further discussion). They have an account with very little activity so we don't really know who they are or how knowledgeable (and how biased) they are on these issues. I think some skepticism is very much warranted and I don't understand why their comment sits at the top of the thread. They're not making "arguments from the available information", they're just making a statement without providing evidence. >But that this is no simple "engineer vigilante" is evident It is not to me. It's plausible that he might not be but I haven't seen a conclusive demonstration either and I'd sooner trust Ars over "some anonymous poster on HN who says it's not true". I tried reading the PDF provided and I found it very obtuse and verbose, but then again so are patent applications as far as I'm concerned. I'm genuinely incapable of judging the level of skill and dedication required to create something like that. If you are I'd very much like to hear about it instead of throwing vague accusations. Is is that implausible that a skilled engineer used to dealing with patents could come up with something like that on their own or with only minor outside help?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
golergka 8y ago
Many users of this site are used to evaluate comments on merit alone, without ever bothering to check who the comment author is. I personally don't think it's that bad of a situation.
rando444 8y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_the_stone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_the_stone If you're going to argue against an assertion, you should include an argument.
- mtarnovan 8y ago
  The argument was implicit: he called it a conspiracy theory. A conspiracy theory is an explanation of an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy [...] without credible evidence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory
  - rando444 8y ago
    That's not an argument. You should look at the example in the wikipedia article I posted. The poster formed an opinion based on observations and gave his reasons for doing so. If you disagree with his observations, the best way to do so is to provide your reasons for disagreeing with his analysis.
    - ectospheno 8y ago
      What analysis? OP basically said "these words are big" and from that determined it was written by others.
robdachshund 8y ago
It's really funny that you assume an article is objectively true

ObsoleteNerd 8y ago

Or he hired a law firm to write it for him? Not far fetched.

Buge 8y ago
He said he paid $6k, and that he considers the money well spent. It seems weird that he would pay $100k and then claim to have paid $6k.
- deadbunny 8y ago
  Where are you getting 100k from?
  - JshWright 8y ago
    That is the amount suggested (with zero evidence) by the original comment in this thread.
- bobjordan 8y ago
  Well, $6K is a pretty good deal, considering I paid over $15K so far for an associate level patent lawyer to finally submit a 49-page provisional utility patent. Now, there is still a ton of work we need to do to go back and clean that shit up. Basically, he just photocopied everything plus the kitchen sink to get it filed. I know I have at least that bill amount waiting on us before we finally get it issued.

greenleafjacob 8y ago

Can you share the document?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
discjockeydom 8y ago
Try this link: https://openload.co/f/RjnRdy-K4zM/90020113.pdf https://openload.co/f/RjnRdy-K4zM/90020113.pdf

pmorici 8y ago

If you are willing to sink the time into it it it not impossible for a smart person to do legal work that appears to require a professional lawyer.

fapjacks 8y ago
Actually, I am pretty good friends with a civil engineer that did something almost exactly like this for a friend of his. He did this in his spare time and having no prior experience with the niche industry and law his friend's company operated in (botanical health supplements). The people from the federal government involved in the complaint did not believe he wasn't a specialized lawyer with a team of assistants. Do not underestimate the capacity of an engineer scorned.
- choonway 8y ago
  if a dedicated civil engineer can pick up some law books and make it seem he was some high powered lawyer team, can a dedicated lawyer pick up some engineering books and build a bridge that can survive SF's 'Big One'?
  - Ush2iaph 8y ago
    Maybe? A wooden pedestrian bridge with seismic shift absorbers like pagodas have seems feasible for a 1-man job, given enough time.
  - turtlecloud 8y ago
    Because of the internet - information is much more readily available. Nowadays a layman can just search all the information and perform similarly.
  - murukesh_s 8y ago
    Don't know about the bridge but he can definitely build the next Facebook.
  - snowwrestler 8y ago
    Seems to me he could almost certainly design a bridge with resistance to failure due to an earthquake. The material and principles involved in designing earthquake resistant structures are well understood and publicly available. The primary constraints on such structures are the cost and time to build them. As for surviving "the big one"... it depends on how big? I'm not sure humanity in general knows how to build a bridge that could survive a dozen meters of shift between its piers. But that is a possibility in the largest conceivable earthquakes.

haser_au 8y ago

I think this story does an injustice by calling him an 'engineer'. He cofounded Speedera Networks, which was acquired for $130m by Akamai after a 3-year patent battle, a battle he was on the front-line of and learnt a lot about patent infringement. Yes, he's an engineer, but he's also an engineer who knows more than the average engineer about patents and complex legal argumentation. Source: https://www.wired.com/story/eric-swildens-uber-waymo-lawsuit-patent/ https://www.wired.com/story/eric-swildens-uber-waymo-lawsuit...

true_religion 8y ago
It is not a deservice. Its indicative of how poorly we view our own profession that everyone with other skills must be more than engineer, merely by applying them. A lawyer who becomes mayor is still a lawyer. A doctor who runs a phamacology company is still a doctor. And yes, and engineer who founds a company still retains the core skills and prestige of their hardwon profession. Or at least, I think they should.
- sdenton4 8y ago
  Hardwon profession: Three weeks in a boot camp followed by two years on the bloody frontlines of the Framework Wars...
  - mLuby 8y ago
    I support our troops.
  - true_religion 8y ago
    To be fair, when you become a doctor it is because your peers grant you the title, not merely due to your GPA. Outside the US, engineering is the same. Within the US, there is no formal board for software engineerig but we can at least informally say one is an engineer if other engineers would recognize them as such. I know people whom graduated bootcamps and could qualify as engineers, albiet inexperienced ones, and those who have finished 4 years of schooling but cannot practice engineering. The guy in the article was inducted into the Academy of Science and Engineering at 34. Whether that makes him pretigious or not isn't the question, but there is no doubt in my mind that he is an engineer.

akavel 8y ago

The Ars article omitted an important background note about the guy, that he sold a company for $120M at one point, and that it was "cheaply" because he was forced to do so by a lost patent dispute: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18119018 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18119018

femto 8y ago

Elsewhere it's mentioned that Swildens was on the receiving end of a 3 year battle over patent infringement, where he was a founder and so intimately involved. After an apprenticeship like that it would be unsurprising if he could emulate a team of lawyers.

gota 8y ago
I was about to comment something similar. I've myself worked with patent lawyers and can emulate their speech to some extent.
groby_b 8y ago
"Our marketing person sat in the room with engineers for 3 years. It's no wonder they can now emulate a team of engineers" The amount by which engineering egos are inflated is amazing. Guess what - being a lawyer takes a bit more work than being on a legal case for three years. Why, as opposed to engineers, there's actually a bar they are held to.
- apendleton 8y ago
  Sure, but the claim here isn't that the person passed the bar or is a lawyer, just that they were able to produce a lawyer-like document requiring knowledge of one specific subset of the law that they happen to have had lots of exposure to in their regular job. Sometimes marketing people that sit with the engineers actually learn to code. It has happened at my company. Do they have all the skills someone who got a CS degree would have? Maybe not. Do they have some subset of those skills necessary for the particular tasks the team is faced with daily at this company? Sure.
- cmorgan31 8y ago
  You can take the legal documentation from the previous patent battle to see how to frame arguments. It's not uncommon for intellectual property and patent attorneys to dabble in their area of expertise to better understand both the exceptions raised by experts and form arguments that experts understand. My wife asks for advice all the time on how to phrase key points because at the end of the day they are trying to make compelling arguments. Do you really think it's impossible a founder and engineer who went through a three year battle over patents could form a similar document? You'd only have to understand the assertions and have an attorney review your work. There are tons of legal reviews which end up with only one person being listed while the others are not given attribution to the document.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

simias 8y ago

Can you give some more specifics? What are your credentials exactly? You only have three comments in five years on your account, all related to patent discussions but no context as to who you are exactly.

ageofwant 8y ago

Goodness yes, everybody knows that a mere engineer can never be a clever lawyer. Except perhaps patent lawyers, which in most jurisdictions have both engineering and lawyering degrees. Or perhaps just a motivated company founder with 4 years of expertise fighting patents. Pretty far fetched I know, but perhaps one should keep a open mind...

coldtea 8y ago
>Goodness yes, everybody knows that a mere engineer can never be a clever lawyer. Sure, an engineer can be a lawyer (there's no law of physics against it). But it's also much less often than this happens than an engineer NOT being a lawyer. That's the parent's argument, not that it's impossible.
- apendleton 8y ago
  Well, sure, but most engineers don't regularly submit patent challenges. This engineer is not typical.

lawrenceyan 8y ago

The plot thickens...