7 ms·

I’m a patent attorney. Honestly this is pretty impressive—total scorched earth tactics against ALL of the entity’s assets? I don’t think I’ve ever seen that bef

by egdod 7y ago

I’m a patent attorney. Honestly this is pretty impressive—total scorched earth tactics against ALL of the entity’s assets? I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before, and I bet it makes some people think twice.

mmerlin 7y ago
Not only their assets, but also their right to practice as lawyers... the founders were reported to bar association in two states for ethics violations... "what safeguards should be put in place to make sure that attorneys who take the oath are held to a standard beyond mere greed or base opportunism" Cloudflare really is making the world a better place in this case, by fighting back against the kinds of legal weasel who exists purely to be a money leech with no benefit to anyone but themselves.
- vesinisa 7y ago
  Unfortunately, the challenges before the bar associations were apparently not successful. Their wording is careful since "disciplinary proceedings in front of bar associations are generally confidential", but they do remark that "it will take a broader change in orientation by these professional associations" before even obvious patent trolling is considered legal malpractice.
  - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
    We already have barratry laws on the books. Someone just needs to enforce them. Advancing disingenuous arguments in court should be an automatic year's suspension.
    - rayiner 7y ago
      What is a "disingenuous argument?" Is it like reading the phrase "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" to mean something less than that based on a clearly set-off explanatory clause in front? (Sorry, I couldn't resist.) The standard for permissible arguments in court is having a good faith basis in law or fact, or a good faith argument for extending or changing the law. It's not clear to me that's wrong. Fee-splitting with non-lawyers is the bigger issue. That is impermissible for all sorts of good reasons.
      - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
        Court officers take an oath not to waste the court's time. Knowingly advancing baseless claims that are only meant to scare a victim into settling is a violation of that oath. This isn't hard stuff. The priesthood just doesn't want to hold its members accountable.
        rayiner 7y ago
        My point is that "disingenuous" sweeps quite a bit more broadly than "baseless."
      - notSupplied 7y ago
        If it was so obvious, why did you omit the clause?
      - areyousure 7y ago
        > Fee-splitting with non-lawyers is the bigger issue. That is impermissible for all sorts of good reasons. Out of (sincere) curiosity, what are some of those reasons? Thanks.
    - mr_toad 7y ago
      What some of these outfits are up to is more than just barratry, it’s extortion and racketeering. I’d like to see them brought up on RICO charges.
  - egdod 7y ago
    Patent trolling isn’t considered improper at all. I would hope that the complaints to the bar had a little more in them than “this lawyer is doing something we don’t like but that isn’t actually against the rules.”
    - vesinisa 7y ago
      Don't read too much into my paraphrasing, as per the article they did in fact raise substantiated malpractice complaints. The troll had entered into a forbidden profit sharing arrangement with a non-lawyer, and was being purposely ambiguous if it is a law firm at all.
    - agency 7y ago
      Per the post, their complaints were based on rules prohibiting attorneys from splitting contingency fees with non-attorneys. The patent they were asserting against Cloudflare was purchased from the inventor for $1 plus “other good and valuable consideration.” As part of their defense to the ethics complaint Blackbird asserted that they do not use contingency fee arrangements for the patents it acquires, but do something "similar."
    - crispyambulance 7y ago
      > Patent trolling isn’t considered improper at all. That's for the bar to decide. But what do you mean "... at all" ? The sad truth is that many hard working companies have had to fork over thousands of dollars to law firms that happen to hold patents but which don't have any means or even intent to deploy the inventions in those patents. These law firms simply exist to extract money by virtue of holding vaguely-worded garbage patents. THAT's what a patent troll is and THAT is improper.
      - egdod 7y ago
        What I mean is that it isn’t against the rules. You’re welcome to think it’s a little shady (and I won’t disagree), but it’s not improper. What’s improper about creating liquidity in the market for inventions? And patents don’t require the holder to make or sell anything—they give the holder the right to prevent others from doing so.
  - htrp 7y ago
    Doesn't matter if the disciplinary action is successful, the fact that cloudflare seizes the initiative is impressive.
pnako 7y ago
That's what happens when you mess with the NSA.
mortdeus 7y ago
Well when lawyers think they are the smartest ones in the room but are in reality dumb enough to present starving engineers and entrepreneurs with a "life or death" dire problem to solve, what did you expect to happen? For us just to sit back while you guys prostitute us for all our worth so you can pay for your 3rd wife's divorcing you?
- cbsmith 7y ago
  That's generally not what they do. They deliberately structure it not as a "life or death" problem, but rather a "nuisance or larger nuisance" problem. The expected response (which generally happens) is that people choose "nuisance".
shmerl 7y ago
That's the only thing that works with thugs.
eloff 7y ago
This is such a great feel good story. I've been reading for a decade about the injustice of patent trolls bullying and extorting startups for money, sometimes killing them. Hearing about NewEgg fighting back gave me some hope, but this scorched earth strategy from Cloudflare read the same to me as watching an epic sports play. Well done Cloudflare, once again you have my respect and gratitude. There's nothing better than a bully getting theirs.
jacquesl 7y ago
They poked the wrong dragon. It’s impressive that CF invested the resources in fighting them. What’s unfortunate is the number of small companies that have been killed by patent trolls.
cushychicken 7y ago
Yeah, this wants to read like "oh hey! Look at all the neat work we did to stop patent trolls!" But in reality it's a lot more like listening to Adrian Veidt after he pulled off his scheme in Watchmen. Diabolical, but you can't help but respect them for it.
- mcv 7y ago
  Cloudflare didn't kill a million people, though. But I would definitely want to see them kill a million patents.
  - cushychicken 7y ago
    Hah, no, they certainly didn't. That's a bad comparison for me to make. My point is that this is a pretty transparent flex of corporate might. It's hard to escape the subtext of "Fuck with us, and we will grind you into the dirt".
    - mcv 7y ago
      It's probably not something a smaller company might be able to afford, and that's the entire problem with the patent troll phenomenon: it doesn't matter how valid their patents are, they're counting on it being too expensive for their victims to fight it. If settling is cheaper than fighting and winning, the troll can continue to extort others. We need companies with the means to do so to take the effort to actually defeat and invalidate the patents if we want to stop the trolls. It's all part of US justice being for sale rather than equally distributed. What would be better if there was a legal defense fund that were to support small companies and do this for them. Or better yet: a legal system that doesn't allow this sort of predatory behaviour.
      - cushychicken 7y ago
        I agree with everything you just said, 100%. Still doesn't change the fact that I wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of Cloudflare after seeing this.
rkangel 7y ago
Tactically though, doesn't this mostly just benefit CloudFlare? They have very effectively demolished one patent troll. This will ensure that only people who are very sure of the validity of their patents will use them against CloudFlare. Does it make any other targets more scary? Is there that a patent troll wouldn't do now that they would have done previously, apart from attack CloudFlare specifically? One less patent troll is definitely a good thing, and I'm always happy to see someone fight back. I think we should be careful not to assign too much scope to the victory though.
- plmu 7y ago
  The example might encourage other companies to do the same. Then it would have a real impact for everyone.
- mcv 7y ago
  It certainly benefits Cloudflare by making any patent troll think twice before suing them, but to a lesser extent, it also benefits the entire tech industry: Cloudflare set an example that anyone with similar resources can follow. And Cloudflare shared many of the results of their work, including an extensive prior art portfolio. This can be useful to anyone who gets sued for these and possibly similar patents. I really hope more companies will follow Cloudflare's example.
- nullc 7y ago
  How is this patent troll demolished? Won't they just go acquire more patents for $1 + 'other valuable considerations' and continue on?
  - joshuaissac 7y ago
    Many of the patents in their portfolio now have publicly-accessible crowdsourced prior art pools that defendants can use to invalidate more patents. They can still buy new patents, but because of what has already happened, they are down on staff. They have not been vanquished, but they have been weakened.
    - 7y ago

by egdod 7y ago

mmerlin 7y ago

Not only their assets, but also their right to practice as lawyers... the founders were reported to bar association in two states for ethics violations... "what safeguards should be put in place to make sure that attorneys who take the oath are held to a standard beyond mere greed or base opportunism" Cloudflare really is making the world a better place in this case, by fighting back against the kinds of legal weasel who exists purely to be a money leech with no benefit to anyone but themselves.

vesinisa 7y ago
Unfortunately, the challenges before the bar associations were apparently not successful. Their wording is careful since "disciplinary proceedings in front of bar associations are generally confidential", but they do remark that "it will take a broader change in orientation by these professional associations" before even obvious patent trolling is considered legal malpractice.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  We already have barratry laws on the books. Someone just needs to enforce them. Advancing disingenuous arguments in court should be an automatic year's suspension.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    What is a "disingenuous argument?" Is it like reading the phrase "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" to mean something less than that based on a clearly set-off explanatory clause in front? (Sorry, I couldn't resist.) The standard for permissible arguments in court is having a good faith basis in law or fact, or a good faith argument for extending or changing the law. It's not clear to me that's wrong. Fee-splitting with non-lawyers is the bigger issue. That is impermissible for all sorts of good reasons.
    - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
      Court officers take an oath not to waste the court's time. Knowingly advancing baseless claims that are only meant to scare a victim into settling is a violation of that oath. This isn't hard stuff. The priesthood just doesn't want to hold its members accountable.
      - rayiner 7y ago
        My point is that "disingenuous" sweeps quite a bit more broadly than "baseless."
    - notSupplied 7y ago
      If it was so obvious, why did you omit the clause?
    - areyousure 7y ago
      > Fee-splitting with non-lawyers is the bigger issue. That is impermissible for all sorts of good reasons. Out of (sincere) curiosity, what are some of those reasons? Thanks.
  - mr_toad 7y ago
    What some of these outfits are up to is more than just barratry, it’s extortion and racketeering. I’d like to see them brought up on RICO charges.
- egdod 7y ago
  Patent trolling isn’t considered improper at all. I would hope that the complaints to the bar had a little more in them than “this lawyer is doing something we don’t like but that isn’t actually against the rules.”
  - vesinisa 7y ago
    Don't read too much into my paraphrasing, as per the article they did in fact raise substantiated malpractice complaints. The troll had entered into a forbidden profit sharing arrangement with a non-lawyer, and was being purposely ambiguous if it is a law firm at all.
  - agency 7y ago
    Per the post, their complaints were based on rules prohibiting attorneys from splitting contingency fees with non-attorneys. The patent they were asserting against Cloudflare was purchased from the inventor for $1 plus “other good and valuable consideration.” As part of their defense to the ethics complaint Blackbird asserted that they do not use contingency fee arrangements for the patents it acquires, but do something "similar."
  - crispyambulance 7y ago
    > Patent trolling isn’t considered improper at all. That's for the bar to decide. But what do you mean "... at all" ? The sad truth is that many hard working companies have had to fork over thousands of dollars to law firms that happen to hold patents but which don't have any means or even intent to deploy the inventions in those patents. These law firms simply exist to extract money by virtue of holding vaguely-worded garbage patents. THAT's what a patent troll is and THAT is improper.
    - egdod 7y ago
      What I mean is that it isn’t against the rules. You’re welcome to think it’s a little shady (and I won’t disagree), but it’s not improper. What’s improper about creating liquidity in the market for inventions? And patents don’t require the holder to make or sell anything—they give the holder the right to prevent others from doing so.
- htrp 7y ago
  Doesn't matter if the disciplinary action is successful, the fact that cloudflare seizes the initiative is impressive.

pnako 7y ago

That's what happens when you mess with the NSA.

mortdeus 7y ago

Well when lawyers think they are the smartest ones in the room but are in reality dumb enough to present starving engineers and entrepreneurs with a "life or death" dire problem to solve, what did you expect to happen? For us just to sit back while you guys prostitute us for all our worth so you can pay for your 3rd wife's divorcing you?

cbsmith 7y ago
That's generally not what they do. They deliberately structure it not as a "life or death" problem, but rather a "nuisance or larger nuisance" problem. The expected response (which generally happens) is that people choose "nuisance".

shmerl 7y ago

That's the only thing that works with thugs.

eloff 7y ago

This is such a great feel good story. I've been reading for a decade about the injustice of patent trolls bullying and extorting startups for money, sometimes killing them. Hearing about NewEgg fighting back gave me some hope, but this scorched earth strategy from Cloudflare read the same to me as watching an epic sports play. Well done Cloudflare, once again you have my respect and gratitude. There's nothing better than a bully getting theirs.

jacquesl 7y ago

They poked the wrong dragon. It’s impressive that CF invested the resources in fighting them. What’s unfortunate is the number of small companies that have been killed by patent trolls.

cushychicken 7y ago

Yeah, this wants to read like "oh hey! Look at all the neat work we did to stop patent trolls!" But in reality it's a lot more like listening to Adrian Veidt after he pulled off his scheme in Watchmen. Diabolical, but you can't help but respect them for it.

mcv 7y ago
Cloudflare didn't kill a million people, though. But I would definitely want to see them kill a million patents.
- cushychicken 7y ago
  Hah, no, they certainly didn't. That's a bad comparison for me to make. My point is that this is a pretty transparent flex of corporate might. It's hard to escape the subtext of "Fuck with us, and we will grind you into the dirt".
  - mcv 7y ago
    It's probably not something a smaller company might be able to afford, and that's the entire problem with the patent troll phenomenon: it doesn't matter how valid their patents are, they're counting on it being too expensive for their victims to fight it. If settling is cheaper than fighting and winning, the troll can continue to extort others. We need companies with the means to do so to take the effort to actually defeat and invalidate the patents if we want to stop the trolls. It's all part of US justice being for sale rather than equally distributed. What would be better if there was a legal defense fund that were to support small companies and do this for them. Or better yet: a legal system that doesn't allow this sort of predatory behaviour.
    - cushychicken 7y ago
      I agree with everything you just said, 100%. Still doesn't change the fact that I wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of Cloudflare after seeing this.

rkangel 7y ago

Tactically though, doesn't this mostly just benefit CloudFlare? They have very effectively demolished one patent troll. This will ensure that only people who are very sure of the validity of their patents will use them against CloudFlare. Does it make any other targets more scary? Is there that a patent troll wouldn't do now that they would have done previously, apart from attack CloudFlare specifically? One less patent troll is definitely a good thing, and I'm always happy to see someone fight back. I think we should be careful not to assign too much scope to the victory though.

plmu 7y ago
The example might encourage other companies to do the same. Then it would have a real impact for everyone.
mcv 7y ago
It certainly benefits Cloudflare by making any patent troll think twice before suing them, but to a lesser extent, it also benefits the entire tech industry: Cloudflare set an example that anyone with similar resources can follow. And Cloudflare shared many of the results of their work, including an extensive prior art portfolio. This can be useful to anyone who gets sued for these and possibly similar patents. I really hope more companies will follow Cloudflare's example.
nullc 7y ago
How is this patent troll demolished? Won't they just go acquire more patents for $1 + 'other valuable considerations' and continue on?
- joshuaissac 7y ago
  Many of the patents in their portfolio now have publicly-accessible crowdsourced prior art pools that defendants can use to invalidate more patents. They can still buy new patents, but because of what has already happened, they are down on staff. They have not been vanquished, but they have been weakened.
  - 7y ago