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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

by 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.
  - rhinoceraptor 7y ago
    There's a big difference between legal and ethical. And it's not creating liquidity in the market for inventions. It's creating liquidity in state-sanctioned and enforced monopoly rights of inventions.
    - egdod 7y ago
      Without that monopoly, there wouldn’t be much of a market for inventions.
      - ric2b 7y ago
        Of course there would, there's a lot of money to be made from inventing something, even without a patent. And the biggest companies in the world aren't the biggest because they have patent protected monopolies.
- jimmydddd 7y ago
  Some people own houses that they don't even intend to live in. Then they rent out those houses to other people who actually want to live there. Improper?
  - ufmace 7y ago
    Rather different things. The right to own property and do what you want with it, outside of a relatively limited set of prohibitions, is a fundamental right that forms the basis of our economy. Patents are an artificial construct created for a specific purpose with specific limitations. They are meant to encourage technological innovation by providing temporary Government protection for the inventor in exchange for a disclosure of the details of the technology. For an entity that has not invented anything and has no intention to do any research or sell any products to use them to extort rents from companies that actually do those things is a distortion of the purpose of the system.
  - marcus_holmes 7y ago
    no, this is similar to owning a plan for a house, then charging rent (without ever having built the house) to anyone who happens to live in a house that looks a bit similar to the plan.
  - ta0xdeadbeef 7y ago
    IP isn't a tangible asset, so the analogy is unsound. I think it's improper for someone not using IP or not the original developer of IP to be able to make IP claims. If you didn't develop the tech or aren't using the tech, you shouldn't have any claim over the usage of that tech. The same goes for "defensive" patent strategies. They're an affront to the spirit of patents.
    - egdod 7y ago
      > I think it's improper for someone not using IP or not the original developer of IP to be able to make IP claims Congress, the Supreme Court, and hundreds of years of precedent would disagree.
- rasz 7y ago
  >> Patent trolling isn’t considered improper at all. >That's for the bar to decide. and the bar decided those guys did nothing wrong ...

by egdod 7y ago

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.
- rhinoceraptor 7y ago
  There's a big difference between legal and ethical. And it's not creating liquidity in the market for inventions. It's creating liquidity in state-sanctioned and enforced monopoly rights of inventions.
  - egdod 7y ago
    Without that monopoly, there wouldn’t be much of a market for inventions.
    - ric2b 7y ago
      Of course there would, there's a lot of money to be made from inventing something, even without a patent. And the biggest companies in the world aren't the biggest because they have patent protected monopolies.
jimmydddd 7y ago
Some people own houses that they don't even intend to live in. Then they rent out those houses to other people who actually want to live there. Improper?
- ufmace 7y ago
  Rather different things. The right to own property and do what you want with it, outside of a relatively limited set of prohibitions, is a fundamental right that forms the basis of our economy. Patents are an artificial construct created for a specific purpose with specific limitations. They are meant to encourage technological innovation by providing temporary Government protection for the inventor in exchange for a disclosure of the details of the technology. For an entity that has not invented anything and has no intention to do any research or sell any products to use them to extort rents from companies that actually do those things is a distortion of the purpose of the system.
- marcus_holmes 7y ago
  no, this is similar to owning a plan for a house, then charging rent (without ever having built the house) to anyone who happens to live in a house that looks a bit similar to the plan.
- ta0xdeadbeef 7y ago
  IP isn't a tangible asset, so the analogy is unsound. I think it's improper for someone not using IP or not the original developer of IP to be able to make IP claims. If you didn't develop the tech or aren't using the tech, you shouldn't have any claim over the usage of that tech. The same goes for "defensive" patent strategies. They're an affront to the spirit of patents.
  - egdod 7y ago
    > I think it's improper for someone not using IP or not the original developer of IP to be able to make IP claims Congress, the Supreme Court, and hundreds of years of precedent would disagree.
rasz 7y ago
>> Patent trolling isn’t considered improper at all. >That's for the bar to decide. and the bar decided those guys did nothing wrong ...