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Ask HN: I was hit with a patent troll lawsuit, how do I deal with it?

833 points by jblake 5y ago

This particular patent troll has filed lawsuits with at least a dozen of my competitors in the past year. Some were voluntarily dismissed, some ongoing, rest unknown (based on my limited research skills). The patent in question involves downloading a remote database to a mobile device used as a lookup table when scanning a QR code. Yeah... I'm a one person company and have no idea what to do.

emedchill 5y ago
Contact a lawyer
runjake 5y ago
Contact a lawyer who can help.
davismwfl 5y ago
I don't know if they would help in this case, but maybe reach out to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org) and see if they have any recommendations. There are also some law firms in the US which will help against these types of suits without requiring you to fork over a large retainer. You'll have to research these but they are out there.
pil4rin 5y ago
Get a lawyer. Their advice will probably be settle.
fallingknife 5y ago
You have to talk to a lawyer. No one other than a IP attorney experienced in dealing with patent trolls will be able to give you accurate advice on this. Also you should add "[ask HN]" to the beginning of your post. edit: A good way to find a lawyer is to talk to good lawyers you have worked with in the past. They will not be able to help you themself if they practice in a different area, but will likely have referrals for someone who does.
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  > Also you should add "[ask HN]" to the beginning of your post. I thought that was automatically appended? Just seemingly not in this case possibly because it doesn't end with a question mark.
  - codefined 5y ago
    Nope, just convention.
- stinos 5y ago
  A good way to find a lawyer is to talk to good lawyers you have worked with in the past. I.e. none for me. Is it that common to have worked with lawyers then? I honestly wouldn't know how to find a good lawyer. I don't even think I know anyone in person who ever needed a lawyer (not sure - it's not something which comes up often in conversations).
  - jblake 5y ago
    You are not alone!
    - ghaff 5y ago
      You specifically need a patent/IP lawyer. Someone else mentioned the EFF. You might also try the Software Freedom Law Center. They're specifically focused on open source but they might be able to point you in an appropriate direction.
    - zoobab 5y ago
      Président of FFII.org here, we received several requests from small companies here in Europe. You can contact me at zoobab at gmail.com. We are now busy with the 3rd attempt to impose software patents in the EU via the UPC.
  - duped 5y ago
    Most state bar associations have a website where you can search for whatever specialty you might need. You can also talk to your investors for advice, or ask around your community for recommendations.
nceqs3 5y ago
You could always settle. How much are they asking for? Could you share the patent # they are trying to use?
- ryantgtg 5y ago
  Yes, that is one of the options. They can also represent themselves, or hire a lawyer. What else could they also do? Run away to another country maybe?
  - mchusma 5y ago
    To clarify, in some jurisdictions in the US, businesses cannot represent themselves. Which is a travesty for companies like this guy, who doesn't even have that as an option. I don't actually know about patent law, I just have had an experience with a frivolous lawsuit for a low-ish dollar amount that it would cost more to defend than lose. Because we couldn't represent ourselves, we just had to let it go to default judgement.
    - reasonabl_human 5y ago
      What jurisdictions include such restrictions? Just curious, have never heard of this.
      - gamblor956 5y ago
        Actually, most states have restrictions against non-attorneys representing a business in court. (See for example for CA Merco Construction Engineers v. Municipal Court.) Otherwise however a business can represent itself in court, so long as its representative is a practicing attorney. Many states (but not all) won't require the attorney to be licensed in the state of litigation so long as they are licensed elsewhere. Also, all states will allow a business to represent itself in small claims courts, where attorneys are not allowed unless they happen to be an employee of the business.
- akersten 5y ago
  By settling, they would be enabling the cycle of abuse. This is as good as "you could always pay the bitcoin ransom." OP needs to contact the EFF and knock this down in court - it's the only way to push back against insane software patents.
relaunched 5y ago
Talk to a lawyer. But, here's some things to know - 1) Willful infringement is worse than infringing. 2) Patent trolls are trying to earn money - some money is better than no money. 3) In most legal scenarios, you want to get out of the conflict as cheaply as possible - vindication is very expensive.
- wyager 5y ago
  > vindication is very expensive While true, this is unfortunate, because it means that patent trolls continue to get away with this behavior. I think society today is insufficiently aggressive and vengeful. The social utility of vengefulness is precisely that it allows for n-tit-for-tat strategies to punish social defectors like patent trolls.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    > I think society today is insufficiently aggressive and vengeful. Sure, the society with one of the largest per capita prison populations in the world is insufficiently vengeful.
    - saxonww 5y ago
      When you're directing vengeance at the wrong problems, then yes.
      - laurent123456 5y ago
        Yes, and there's no reason to think that if society was more aggressive and vengeful, vengeance would be directed towards anybody but the most vulnerable. Patent trolls would do just fine in that kind of world.
    - munificent 5y ago
      The historical structures that lead to the US's incarceration rate are not based on vengeance. They are in place to preserve existing pre-Emancipation power structures and continue to provide a source of unpaid labor.
indymike 5y ago
Without knowing who is suing, what patent, and how they are claiming your are infringing it is difficult to say anything other than get a lawyer.
- _trampeltier 5y ago
  Special what patent would be helpful and interesting.
MattGaiser 5y ago
Maybe contact EFF? https://www.eff.org/pages/legal-assistance https://www.eff.org/pages/legal-assistance Probably a long shot, but you might get somewhere.
zero_deg_kevin 5y ago
Lawyer up and prepare for an unsatisfying result. Unless you’ve got deep pockets and a lot of time, they’ve already won.
kleinsch 5y ago
Dealt with something similar. Talk to a lawyer, they’ll tell you to settle. It sucks, but when you’re small that’s how this works. Fighting these could be a multi year process that costs tons of money and may require you to personally show up in court. Do you want to bet the future of your company and spend hundreds of hours of your life fighting this? Or do you give them a few thousand to go away?
williesleg 5y ago
Just ignore it. By acknowledging it you're engaging with them. They're looking for low hanging fruit.
bombcar 5y ago
You may want to reach out to some of your competitors and try to find the lawyers they used (especially the dismissed ones). If there are any court records they may show this.
- berdon 5y ago
  I second this thought. Everyone hates patent trolls and it's very possible some of these companies might relish another opportunity to force this one to "lose".
  - Tpsoc 5y ago
    Or depending on the industry, your competitors might be happy to see one less competitor.
    - lovecg 5y ago
      They’re a one person company, and I assume their competitors are not exactly Google and Facebook either. Surely there’s enough market share at that level to allow for some compassion and basic human decency? Not everyone has to be ruthless 100% of the time
      - Tpsoc 5y ago
        I would hope so as well.
orzig 5y ago
Bad idea for the sake of discussion: Why not represent yourself, make the whole process as public as possible (marketing to offset the cost of time), and do everything you can to asymmetrically use their lawyer's time? Even if you end up settling, they might come to the table a little more eager to get it over with
- neilk 5y ago
  Because this is a distraction from your business, and distracting you IS their business. Every hour spent on legal affairs, playing on their turf, weakens you and strengthens them. Patent trolls have no reputation to ruin, so you can’t shame them by being very public. Unless this is a particularly outrageous case or you are a very well-known person I doubt you can get much marketing benefit from a public fight.
- lovecg 5y ago
  Going public works if a) you own the newspaper or b) your story can pull some serious societal heart strings. Unfortunately the public at large is largely ignorant to the mess that the software patents are, it’s hard to see this getting traction. Also representing yourself is not quite like in the movies. There’s typically no sympathetic judge willing to bend the rules, etc. etc. The bureaucratic machine is quite efficient at following the letter of the law, so you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage by being a non-professional.
robomartin 5y ago
I'll inject a related question here: Does anyone have experience with the LOT network [0]? If so, is this useful, recommended or advisable for small startups? As for the OP. I wonder if joining LOT at this point might have any value for you. Political: The patent troll industry is yet another example of how much our politicians have failed us. I see them as scam artists who would be bad car sales people and ambulance chasers had they not gone into politics. All they care about is votes. Everything else does not affect their fitness function, therefore, they tend to ignore things that are actually important to real people. [0] https://lotnet.com/ https://lotnet.com/
kkielhofner 5y ago
Usual disclaimer: I am not an attorney. Have they actually served you with any notice, potential licensing terms, legal documents of any kind? For clarification, are they a NPE (non-practicing entity)? Anyway, I've worked on pretty much every side of the patent system in the United States (assuming you're there). While I (fortunately) haven't been presented with your exact scenario I suggest: - You need to hire a patent attorney immediately (it doesn't sound like you have one). - Get them up to speed on the situation. - They can advise you on what to do. The advice I've been given in the past essentially boils down to: 1) Have your attorney immediately respond with a letter containing any/all of the following: likely prior art, issues with their patent, why it doesn't apply to you, any circumvention measures you've taken, etc, etc. 2) Meet their terms. It sounds like this probably isn't a viable option for you. #1 serves several purposes: 1) Letting the other party know you have a patent attorney. 2) You (and they) understand the landscape and have a prepared response. 3) You aren't just some naive rube that will be (that) easily intimidated. 4) If they're looking for a quick rollover, settlement, licensing terms, etc that won't happen here. For you it sounds like most of this will be a bluff. Ideally they'll move on to a different target. However based on what you've described they sound very aggressive and well funded so that's probably not what will happen here if it comes to that. As you probably know these kinds of things often come down to who has the last dollar and it sounds like that will be you. The worst case scenario is you end up with a judgement against you and the cops show up and seize company assets. Don't mess around with this and let it get to that. Good luck.
- jblake 5y ago
  Thank you. I have not personally been served, I found out about it via emails from two different patent attorney firms offering their services, with the lawsuit attached as a courtesy. The lawsuit looks legit to me. I live in Tahoe so don't get mail but will check today and also check with my registered agent in Reno. Can you recommend me a patent attorney? Any idea on how much this could cost?
  - scruffyherder 5y ago
    You need to see if you have been served, as it’ll require a signature, not just something in the mail. It’s patent so you can’t file an anti slapp, but until you have been properly served you need to find hearing dates and BE THERE, and demand a dismissal based on improper service. The court will almost always dismiss it, have you served right then and there but it does drag the clock. Also get a lawyer don’t listen to strange people like me on the internet. Most likely it’ll involve some posturing and mediation or a settlement. Also what will happen is your lawyer will send them a request to serve them on your behalf. It’s only the beginning. Things drag slow for months then speed and slow down.
rawtxapp 5y ago
Like many said contacting a lawyer is a good idea, also consider joining the LOT Network, it's like protection against patent trolls by sharing patents.
dmabram 5y ago
I've been through similar situations. The "find a lawyer" comments are less than helpful, since you probably don't know where to begin and most lawyers will happily take your money without necessarily having an expedient path to resolution for a small one-person company. So here's what you do: Write to each of your competitors, explain the situation and ask for a referral to their lawyers. You'd be surprised how many are more than willing to make a referral against a troll Also search around for any other attorneys who have filed against this troll and contact them as well. They should all be willing to do an initial call for free. You are trying to find an attorney who has a successful blueprint for dealing with this particular troll, ideally this particular claim. If the attorney is able to leverage their prior work or knowledge, your costs are greatly reduced. Also, if the troll has unsuccessful experience with a particular attorney they may just give up. Good luck!
- foobarbazetc 5y ago
  Also, just to add to that: a lot of the “good” lawyers will just ghost a one man operation or small business. Dealing with this kind of thing is a nightmare. You have to find someone who does EFF type stuff.
  - ARandomerDude 5y ago
    > will just ghost a one man operation or small business I didn't understand this phrase. Does that mean the "good" lawyer is just a false front and the real business is handled by somebody else?
    - bitwize 5y ago
      To "ghost" someone is to avoid them without a response. The term probably came from personal relationships (e.g., a woman you were dating starts "ghosting" you). It was previously considered rude but is now appropriate to avoid potentially toxic personal or professional relationships.
      - kian 5y ago
mattmaroon 5y ago
Don’t ask for legal advice on the internet, and ignore any advice other than “talk to an attorney”. You’re more likely to be harmed than helped by anything you hear on an open forum.
bennyp101 5y ago
Searching on here returns some results for people asking about how to find an IP lawyer: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=ip+lawyer https://hn.algolia.com/?q=ip+lawyer Might give you a starting point to see some people that have been suggested in the past
Andrew_Russell 5y ago
I am an IP litigator, and I have dealt with patent trolls repeatedly. I have taken these kinds of cases pro bono in the past for small companies (including through the EFF attorney referral list, https://www.eff.org/pages/legal-assistance https://www.eff.org/pages/legal-assistance), and I know that others have as well. There are definitely low-cost and pro bono (free) options out there for very small businesses. The EFF attorney referral list is a good place to start. I'm also happy to talk it through with you if you'd like more specific information - my contact information is here: https://shawkeller.com/attorneys/andrew-e-russell/ https://shawkeller.com/attorneys/andrew-e-russell/
- whynotkeithberg 5y ago
  Awesome!! I hope you're able to help OP out if they call on you. Good luck to everyone who gets involved in this!
- HiroProtagonist 5y ago
  This is very cool and generous of you Andrew.
- brodouevencode 5y ago
  Good Guy ~Greg~ Andrew
- jblake 5y ago
  Wow, thanks Andrew! I sent you an email with the lawsuit. I look forward to hearing from you. What an amazing community!!
  - jblake 5y ago
    I just spoke with Andrew and he was incredibly helpful and is going to help me out. Whew. Thank you Andrew and HN!!
    - JGM_io 5y ago
      Some way the two of you can do a blog or soenthing outlining the main points when dealing with such a threat?
simongr3dal 5y ago
Sorry to hear, I just checked out the site in your profile and it looks like a great product. Consensus seems to be to contact a lawyer, and even if the EFF can't help you directly maybe they can get you in contact with the right kind of lawyer. Hope you find someone who can help you out.
esens 5y ago
As someone who has dealt with this I suggest you figure out a way to avoid the patent. Read through the claims, figure out what combination of features they have patented and then change your product to avoid those features in that combination. You likely can either do something more advanced or something less advanced -- if you have the choice do the more advanced solution as you are then likely pushing your product even further. Fighting patents is for rich, established companies. You do not have the luxury. You should change your product immediately to avoid infringement, or even close to infringing. If you do this you can avoid damages/claims against you. Because you didn't know you were possibly infringing, you can avoid all claims/damages by immediately changing your product. When you respond to them, you should say you didn't realize you were possibly infringing as you were not aware of the patent, you should say that you do not believe you were infringing, but anyhow you have modified your product to clear up any possibility of claims of infringement going forward. You do not want to admit any guilt in anyway (actually the rule is NEVER admit guilt, always claim you believe you are not infringing), and you want to get away from these people because they are not worth your time. But if you do need to use this tech, you should try to license it, but while claiming you are not infringing and there are alternative methods you can adapt. This gives you the most powerful stance. Make sure they understand you are very small and thus not worth dragging this out. Offer them something for a one time fee if possible and get than done and move on. But avoiding the perception of infringing going forward is best.
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  > Fighting patents is for rich, established companies. You do not have the luxury. That is the impression I've formed.
- fncypants 5y ago
  Absolutely do not take any of this advice of the parent. I am an IP litigator. I kill patents as my day job. The parent’s advice assumes the players are reasonable people acting in good faith. In the case of patent trolls, they are often not acting in good faith. Most of the allegations are not good faith interpretations of the patent. There is no “perception of infringement” to begin with. They just want a quick payout and found a cost-efficient way to state a claim against a widely used technology so that they can threaten and file lawsuits in volume. Instead, find a good patent lawyer or a pro bono resource (like EFF or a colleague with experience) that can give you resources or advice to quickly dispose of it cheaply (or even for free), if you cannot afford fight it. Sometimes, it can even be cheaper to hire an excellent patent lawyer that can win the case early than it would be to pay off the patent troll. I have written many a response to a patent licensing demand letter, knowing exactly what to say for much less than settling, where they disappear and never sue. And if they have sued, sometimes they disappear as soon as lawyers they do not want to be up against show up in the case. In the instance of a good faith claim by a patent owner (even if wrong), there will be enough money at stake that it would be worth the cost to consult a good patent lawyer before doing a single thing.
slim 5y ago
Ignore them unless you live in US or EU in which case follow the advice of people living there
erik998 5y ago
readup on lotnet.com Lawsuits from Patent Assertion Entities (PAEs, sometimes called “patent trolls”) can be a drain on resources for any company. With software a primary PAE target, and software becoming an integral part of all industries — putting nearly all companies at risk of being sued. That’s why leading companies have come together to form a collaborative, voluntary community to reduce this risk – one that grows in importance as the economic environment becomes increasingly uncertain.
belter 5y ago
Patent trolls are in my top 3 list of most despised entities. Its the whole hypocrisy of their way of living, cobbled together with their parasitic nature. Some years ago, worked for a US based startup that went public. When they got to a valuation of around 1 billion, they got hit by a patent troll. Completely bogus claim, but at the time the CEO just decided to settle and avoid the risks and financial stress of prolonged litigation. As you stated you are a small business I would start by doing the following four things : 1) Read the Wikipedia pages about these morons. It is a good overview of what you are up against: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_troll 2) This network claims to have helped small business owners. Not sure if its the case but worth checking out: https://lotnet.com/ 3) Some of the recommendations here, are worth checking out as part of your check list: "How to Fight--and Win--Against Patent Trolls" https://www.inc.com/magazine/202004/minda-zetlin/patent-troll-assertion-entity-intellectual-property-lawsuit-settlement.html https://www.inc.com/magazine/202004/minda-zetlin/patent-trol... 4) Respond only through an attorney. Also as stated in the article above, only agree to talk to lawyers where the initial consultation is free of charge. I have no affiliation with this company but you might want to start your search here: https://www.priorilegal.com/intellectual-property/patent/patent-trolls At extreme case, consider closing the company and incorporating in Europe. It will probably change in a few years, but for the moment, litigation is cheaper and courts have a lot more common sense. Good luck and remember ... IANAL
- robocat 5y ago
  Presumably patent trolls often hit when they have the most leverage and the company has the least time and the most money e.g. during due diligence or just before IPO?
rpaddock 5y ago
I'm posting this mostly because it was the next thing that came up in my feed, after seeing your Troll dilemma. The editorial comment may be relevant to your case. Mouser, a large distributor in the Electronic industry is being sued by a Troll. I hope that Mouser chooses to no longer carry the claimed infringing part. How is there any logic to the troll suing the very company getting their product out to the world? https://www.eenewseurope.com/news/micron-mouser-sued-germany?fnid=138574 https://www.eenewseurope.com/news/micron-mouser-sued-germany...
Havoc 5y ago
I have nothing useful to add beyond that I’m rooting for you. Patent troll is a evil move and against a one man double so
cryptica 5y ago
>> I'm a one person company and have no idea what to do. Re-launch your company as a blockchain DAO then leave the country. What kind of retarded legal system facilitates this BS? Why would anyone want to live in such place? Anyone who has any self-respect and has had to work hard for their money would never consider taking any of this crap. Or if you really like your country (I.e. the land and its people), you can shut down your business and join the communist revolution. With the current anti-competitive climate, it's probably only a few years away. Just wait for Gen-Z to receive a decade or so of persistent crony-capitalist beatings and you'll be able to find enough disgruntled comrades to help you fix your situation.
- ccvannorman 5y ago
  Is this a legitimate solution, assuming leaving the country is viable? Can you give an example of a company sued by a patent troll that left/DAO'd and is now successful with the same product, unhurt by the troll?
  - cryptica 5y ago
    I don't know any but it should be possible in theory. It's difficult to imagine how someone would go about suing a DAO. Who would they sue? There is no legal entity to represent a DAO, all the rules of the business are defined in the code, the participants are all in different countries and they're not necessarily owners of the DAO (the DAO is autonomous; it owns itself), DAO members don't even have any legal agreements with each other and they might even be anonymous.
sonthonax 5y ago
Would it be possible to create a corporate structure around a patent to disincentivize trolling? Like if you set up a limited liability company that owns the code that's allegedly infringing on the patent, that then licenses out the offending code to you. But you structure the actual company as something you're buying a infringing service for a nominal fee under an SLA. If that shell company has no assets, and you publicise that to the troll, that would be a major disincentive to actually suing you.
- vnchr 5y ago
  There's still the potential for extorting a settlement based on the business value of the patent to the operating company. But it does seem like that would mitigate risks to other assets, like you said.
- 0z8 5y ago
  I don't think there's a loophole there. If you're making, selling, or using technology that is patented by another party, you're infringing, even if you aren't the creator of that technology.
  - sonthonax 5y ago
    What is the threshold for indirect patent infringement? For instance, I don't fear being sued personally for using Microsoft office (which I'm sure infringes on something).
    - 0z8 5y ago
      Not a lawyer, but as far as I understand there's no threshold or legal distinction between direct and indirect. It's all direct. There's the angle of "how much $ can I extract" that comes into play, which is based on damages incurred from infringement. If you're not making money or preventing the patent holder from making money, you're not worth harassing.
    - rhino369 5y ago
      You can be sued for Office functionality. And you’d probably be the direct infringer. It’s just an inefficient way to sue people and Microsoft would likely step in. But it’s common to get sued for using functionality in open source software.
acomjean 5y ago
I have no advice on how to deal with this, but I looked at the company site, and am having a hard time figuring out how a simple scan/ lookup can be patentable. Bar coded scans at cash registers have been doing this for decades. I suspect this will start to hurt US capitalism. who wants to start a company only to get sued at every turn.
spockz 5y ago
I’m not a patent expert. How much is a specific patent like this worth of the generic pattern is available since ages and it is called “cache” or “offline mode”?
vasco 5y ago
The easiest and most cost effective way, though not one that minimises risk the most, is to have you (if you're technical which I assume you are since you say you're a 1 person company) analyse the claims in the patent and figure out why it doesn't apply to your tech, based on the tiniest detail that is different between your implementation and their claims. Then reply to them saying you've had your engineers review the claims and none of them apply, and thank them for giving you the chance to license their IP, but that in this case it's not going to be necessary. I've seen this work a handful of times and it minimizes lawyer fees. If they come back to you insisting that you're infringing or if you don't have the capacity to do this analysis, or if your analysis is that you indeed do what the patent describes in the same way, I would involve a lawyer. But I wouldn't do it right out of the gate for the first look at the claims as this is your easiest way out.
dathinab 5y ago
Consider contacting your competitors so that you can act together. Consider contacting organizations like the EFF.
emeraldd 5y ago
Is the a rehash of the NeoMedia patent issue? Look up Michaels qr code patent lawsuit ...
- dt3ft 5y ago
  Seems like that patent expired https://patents.google.com/patent/US6199048 https://patents.google.com/patent/US6199048
dt3ft 5y ago
Why are we calling these "patent trolls"? They use the system we all built (or the one we tolerate) and pursue profits as per the "rules of the game". Instead of fighting this one case at a time, shouldn't we be organizing and pushing for the "rules of the game" to be changed and get this over with once and for all? By the way, I strongly believe that software patents should not exist.
- belter 5y ago
  We call them patent trolls because they follow the rules of the game but behave unethically. I have seen US companies convince employees to move to another state. Real reason was dismissal laws were more convenient for the company. After a 3 to 4 months they closed their offices. So all within the rules of the game, but unethical. Or the "hire to fire" practices. Within the rules of the game also...
dathinab 5y ago
Hm this is basically on the level of patenting pulling your wallet out of your green pocket to pay for a coffee at a street food shop. Or cutting wood with a knife to then use it to build a chair. I.e. while you need the result of the first part to do the second part, how you do the first part and how you do the second part are completely unrelated. Honestly given the large degree of economical damage such patent trolling does it's sad to see that laws hasn't been updated to involve serve penalties for anyone trying to abuse the patent system (if it's clear that it's an abuse like in this case). Like if it's such a obvious case like this: 1) Hold the suing person responsible for all financial costs of the defender, and a penalty and personal consequences for lawyer suing. 2) Make it a crime a create "deceptive" patents. Which are not clear in what they patent or clearly (for a person with knowledge of the topic) patent trivial or obvious things which should never bee palatable. 3) Make the patent office earn more money from catching clearly bad patents then from passing them through. Through only if it's "clear" abuse, whatever that means.
- Buttons840 5y ago
  How about requiring a jury of "peers" who actually know the first thing about the subject matter when these things do go to court.
  - dathinab 5y ago
    That is also a good idea, but I would prefer if patent trolls don't even try to go to court. Sadly with many countries law system even if you are in the right they opponent still can drive you to ruine before they lose. So the penalties (for trolling company and lawyer) must be to a point that they won't want to risk abusing the patent system.
    - denton-scratch 5y ago
      Having a jury that knows something about software patents, or about the domain, is emphatically not a good idea. They will second-guess the evidence, ignore the attorneys' pleadings and the judges instructions, and pull a verdict out of their ass, because "they know better".
bitwize 5y ago
There are basically two ways to respond. 1) roll over and show your belly, and pay up 2) get a patent attorney and fight. Depending on the size and resources of the patent troll, you may intimidate them out of pursuing the matter just by lawyering up. No one wants protracted litigation, not even vexatious litigants, for whom the fear of litigation is far more profitable than the actual court proceedings. It's money in your pocket if you can get your victims to spook and settle. Muggers work the same way: they don't want a fight, they want you to get scared and hand over your wallet. I'm not saying that option two is best for you. That depends on your resources. But it's something to consider.
- howmayiannoyyou 5y ago
  Third option: Negotiate a settlement before the lawyer you hire files their appearance. That conversation should be minimal with low expectations. Fourth option: Compared to the cost of most litigation its cheaper to hire a full time corporate counsel to handle the litigation (if you can afford it).
Shicholas 5y ago
another lawyer here, happy to talk nick@neonlaw.com. I do not have bandwidth to take your case, but I will do my best to provide any information I have that may be helpful.
hiidrew 5y ago
Not sure of your age but I'm acquaintances with an individual that was in a similar situation when he was 22. Met in-person and dressed as scrappy as possbile, like a broke college student that doesn't care about their appearance. Ended up settling for $1,000 and exiting with a sale to Ford
mtnGoat 5y ago
when this happened to me, they didn't send the letter certified and misspelled my name on the letter(which gave away who sold my info to them). Thus, by my reckoning, i never got the letter and was unaware, though i did know they were suing many others. Lucky for me one of those others prevailed in court and crushed the troll. Sadly the suit almost bankrupted the company that won, but in the end they proved they wont take crap from trolls.
brudgers 5y ago
Hire one of the attorneys who got the case dismissed.
bob33212 5y ago
I would find an attorney that is willing to send a letter that states: "Thank you for your correspondence, I regret to inform you that you are mistaken in your understanding of my software. The methods of data transfer and QR code analysis are in no way covered by your patent. Even if my software was infringing on this patent, I think that your patent should be invalidated by prior art. Please see Patents, X,Y,Z as evidence of that." It doesn't matter what X,Y and Z are, you are just making them waste time on technical work. Basically you are saying. Lets go to court and let a judge look at all these detailed technical things and let the Judge decide if I owe anything or if you should have this patent at all.
7373737373 5y ago
Is there a site/organization that names and shames the people doing this? Why is there no law that patents only hold when they are actively developed by their owner?
pnw 5y ago
I've been through this multiple times. Plenty of good advice here about getting lawyers and getting your industry together to fight the suit in a joint action. Having said and tried all that personally, I've usually got my lawyer to negotiate it down to a smaller sum of a few thousand dollars and paid it. It simply wasn't worth paying orders of magnitude more than that for a legal process in which the outcome was unsure and that would take years. Did I like it? Hell no but it was the best possible outcome at the time. The secret to a good negotiation is getting your lawyers to call them and basically plead poverty. If you don't have substantial revenue or assets in your corporation, the NPE isn't dumb enough to keep spending time chasing you. In my case they were suing massive multinational corporations and also tiny startups with the same sized lawsuit. The NPE are usually some random inventor who sold their 90's era patent to some shitty lawyers, with an equally random person trying to 'negotiate' the settlements. It's better to let your lawyers deal with them than getting your hands dirty yourself.
- DethNinja 5y ago
  If don't mind, could you tell how much revenue your company was generating while it was sued? I assumed they wouldn't touch companies less than 100k revenue but if they do, I think I might want to get some patent troll insurance.
  - pnw 5y ago
    Pre-revenue startup.
pclmulqdq 5y ago
I have been on both sides of patent lawsuits in the past, but I am not a lawyer, so this is not legal advice. You need a lawyer, but a lot of lawyers do this sort of thing pro bono for small companies. The EFF has a list of attorneys who can help. Interview at least 5 of them - ask for references, ask about past successes in this space, and ask about your case at a high level (give the one-minute overview of the case and ask about their plan). The good news is that most software patents are invalid (thanks to the Alice decision* in 2014), and will be struck down in a process called inter partes review, which is a cheap way to challenge the validity of a patent through the USPTO. When you interview attorneys, you might want to ask prospective candidates about the validity of this patent and if they see this as a viable strategy. Another dynamic at play here is that in many patent proceedings, the loser pays attorneys fees. You may not end up paying a dime, even without a pro-bono lawyer. Trolls like threatening lawsuits to pressure you into a settlement, but there's a lot at risk for them if they actually sue you for infringement. *The full opinion on the Alice case is here, and is very interesting: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-298_7lh8.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-298_7lh8.pdf EDIT: Also, if your lawyer suggests that you might be able to invalidate this patent, you may be able to band together with some of your competitors to share the cost of invalidating it.
TheRealPomax 5y ago
You talk to a lawyer, not the internet. Do not ask HN, or Reddit, or any other community of random folks for legal advice.
fallingfrog 5y ago
You should start a patent troll trade association, so when one of you is attacked you can pool your resources and counter sue. Or maybe start a patent troll insurance company with similar goals. Make yourselves an unappealing target.
LightG 5y ago
A pair of pliers and a blowtorch.
MikeDelta 5y ago
I see a lot of articles online when searching for "QR database download patent lawsuit". It seems patent trolls are very active in the QR field. Such a shame for innovations in this area. I hope something can be done, but I am sceptical. Can you work around the patent?
zoobab 5y ago
The price to pay for not lobbying enough to software patent abolition. In the US, the STRONGER patent act and in the EU the UPC are 2 projects to validate software patents. You can contact me at zoobab at gmail.com, we have has similar requests from small players in the US and in thr EU.
swang 5y ago
just curious, how do they even know you were even "violating" their patent? or does something like saving a JSON count as a "remote database?" or they sniff your app with some MITM proxy?
dzabriskie 5y ago
To expose the entire patent troll ecosystem, HN should find a way to cloud source a database of patent lawsuits. Maybe include data points like - - the patent in question - the troll behind the suit - the defending IP litigator (so others can know where to turn when the troll goes after their next victim) - the outcome of the suit - settled, won, lost, costs, penalties, etc The more information that becomes available to combat these trolls, the better. Perhaps a site like this could run completely off donations, by saving money in legal expenses. Or maybe monetize allowing IP litigators to list their services in a directory. Maybe allow users to review IP litigators and link them to successful/unsuccessful cases and outcomes?
darig 5y ago
How did you get served?
berkay 5y ago
This happened to me as well. I wanted to share how we dealt with it was it was different from most comments here and may be useful to you. We paid. My company was sued along with few multi-billion dollar companies. I only found out because one of their lawyers called me as they were planning to fight back and wanted to check whether I wanted to join forces. I found a good patent attorney and explained the situation. After learning that we were a small company with less that $500K revenue that year, bootstrapped and only had couple hundred thousand dollars in the bank, he suggested that I talked to the patent trolls lawyers by myself without a lawyer first. His rational was that they were not really after us as we were small, and once they learned that, they would either drop it or ask for a small amount to settle. I followed his advice and had a call with them and it went exactly as he predicted. Upon learning that our US revenue was only few hundred thousand dollars, they asked $30K to settle and sent me an agreement. He reviewed the agreement for us, and recommended that we settle. We did. It was a ridiculous patent yet all of the companies that were sued settled as well. The experience was traumatic and was one the main reasons I decided to raise money from investors later. I slept better knowing that we had the funds to fight lawsuits if need be. Patent lawyer was happy to take the case if we needed to, but warned us about how expensive it would be. Given that you're a single person company, you're likely small fish for patent troll. The best option for you may be to let them know that and see what they do. Best of luck!
rasz 5y ago
Ninja Assassins - cheaper than court system.
ransom1538 5y ago
Publicly post their information.
bostonsre 5y ago
Thank you for your service with this, similar cases and with veterans. You have made me a little less nihilistic about the tech industry and it's great to see examples of true altruism in our community every once and a while.
villgax 5y ago
Lol what a baseless claim
vira28 5y ago
Any advice for indie developers to avoid these trolls? (At least something they can do to make it harder for the trollers)

syedkarim 5y ago

I haven't had any luck with this approach. In some cases, the good-lawyer-you-know will respect the intellect of a lawyer from another firm that has a specialty in IP law. And then the referral will get passed down to an associate partner who is just overseeing the work of junior lawyers. In that scenario, the referral from the good-lawyer-you-know had no real value. The other scenario is that the good-lawyer-you-know has a personal relationship with a practicing (as opposed to managing) IP lawyer. This may be a solo practitioner. But the problem with this approach is the the good-lawyer-you-know is relying on an instinctual assessment of the IP lawyer (I like this person; they seem smart), since the good-lawyer you know has not had a need to defend or litigate IP matters. My experience comes from working with a dozen different lawyers, with many being rereferred. I have had $1200/hour partners provide me with factually incorrect information (wrong about actual black-and-white law). And I have had lawyers provide me with $20,000 legal briefs I did not authorize or order. When it comes to litigation attorneys, I have had some success finding a lawyer through other founders who had been fighting lawsuits for years and hired/fired several lawyers to finally settle on the most competent. I have also had luck in finding legal specialists by becoming very well informed on the subject matter (reading lots of case law) and then interviewing random lawyers, who I usually came across through legal blog posts.

foobarbazetc 5y ago
Lawyers, like any other profession, are 95% incompetent. Finding the 5% that are competent is harder than it looks. And the hourly rate and/or physical location of said lawyer bares no correlation to competence level. And once you find that person they usually get scooped up and become GC for some VC funded startup or whatever because word travels.
- belter 5y ago
  Agree. The same applies by the way, to International Tax Advisers and specially if you are doing business across several countries in EU. I paid 200 to 300 dollars per hour for International Tax Consultants, that were unable to understand the most common cross country tax scenarios, like "triangular taxation". At the same time, very cheap and experienced "regular accountants" provided, clear, concise and correct advice.
  - foobarbazetc 5y ago
    Yeah, funnily enough my experience is based on international tax advice. No one actually knows anything about this, save for like 3 people world wide for each country pair. Lawyers will happily bill you for incorrect advice because their liability is limited to the amount invoiced. But you can end up with massive tax bills based on that bad advice. You can do better by reading the law and tax treaties yourself, then getting someone to verify your interpretation. Law is just code for humans.
  - foobarbazetc 5y ago
    Also yes to good accountants. A lot of things you can pay a lawyer for business/tax/etc wise, your accountant can probably do better and cheaper. Accountants are under-appreciated. lol.
- jacobkg 5y ago
  In my experience physicians are not 95% incompetent. Is there something inherently different about law from medicine? Or is more like how 95% of physicians couldn’t help you with a specific problem because it’s outside their specialty?
  - foobarbazetc 5y ago
    As someone who went through a tonne of so-called medical experts for a chronic condition I can say that, based on my experience, most people involved in medicine are incompetent. lol. You just have to bounce around until you hit someone who actually knows what they’re talking about.
    - cutemonster 5y ago
      @foobarbazetc I and some others I know, share your experiences. This is in north western Europe btw.
- throwaway2037 5y ago
  Are you saying that carpenters, electricians, pumblers, builders, cobblers, taxi drivers, nurses, and public school teachers are 95% incompetant? If so, please kindly provide anecdata. This is a positively ridiculous acusation.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - mywittyname 5y ago
    My partner is a nurse by trade and has observed negligent behavior by medical professions every single time we've been to a hospital. Most of the time it is minor, but there have been times where she's had to speak up and get supervisors involved. I'd say that "95% of people exhibit incompetence at least once per shift" is not far from the truth. I've been in taxis where the driver has run redlights. I built a house so I know all about keeping tradesman honest.
  - cutemonster 5y ago
    It's worse with lawyers, in that mistakes they make can go unnoticed for years or forever, so bad lawyers can still bring in lots of money to the company that provides them to you. Or so I think. And the same with doctors, unfortunately, when they don't meet the person they treated again, when there's no follow up if it worked or not. Plumbers, though, are different, in that then there's more feedback: does the water pipe still leak, or not? So they need to do something that actually works.
  - admissionsguy 5y ago
    I think if we relax the statement a bit, to something like "95% of all workers perform at the bare minimum required not to get fired or sued." - it becomes quite defensible. To someone used to high performance, that does look like incompetence. Also, it is much harder to fake it in typical trades than in "professions".

admissionsguy 5y ago

Curious, why is it expensive? Is it similar to the process of getting the patent itself where most companies pay $$$ for lawyers, but a determined technical (and legally literate) person can do it themselves with not that much effort (like I did)? Or is there some sort of gatekeeping or statutory fees that must be paid?

relaunched 5y ago
It's more expensive than getting a patent, which you can do yourself. Courts have procedures, and it many juris dictions, they require you to be represented by an attorney. While I'm not an attorney, I've been the the process enough to know a few of the steps: 1) demand letter(s) and responses 2) negotiations, w/o a mediator 3) drafting and filing of the complaint 4) motions w/ responses 5) negotiations w/ a mediator 6) interrogatories 7) discovery 8) depositions 9) pre-trial hearings / more motions 10) presiding judge led mediation (sometimes the judge wants to give it a shot) 11) trial The entire process can take years - especially when one party is on a tight budget (dragging it out can be strategic). So, there are quite a lot of steps and in the US, very few statuettes allow for legal fee recovery, so it might not be available.
- pnw 5y ago
  In my most recent case, we settled the patent lawsuit for approximately 10% of the estimated cost to litigate, which was well into six figures. If we had chosen to litigate, it would have taken years, been very stressful and possibly created issues with future company financings etc. And even if we had won - the NPE has zero assets to attach so you always bear the legal cost.
  - ThrustVectoring 5y ago
    > the NPE has zero assets to attach so you always bear the legal cost. I've vaguely heard of this so it might not be directly relevant, but I've heard of "performance bonds" or the like being mandated for litigants. Basically the idea is that the litigant has to put up a sum of money to continue the lawsuit so that they don't get the free optionality of collect-if-win / have-no-assets-if-lose scenario.

gnulinux 5y ago
I have never met a single person in my life who didn't ghost multiple people especially in business and dating. Like I receive 10 messages from LinkedIn everyday from recruiters trying to hire me when I'm not on the job market and trying to focus on my job and hobbies. What am I supposed to do? It's clearly rude to ghost friends, acquaintances, business partners etc. But if someone reached out to you with the intention of doing business with you, I think it's ok to ghost them if you're 100% not interested. Am I wrong?
- iudqnolq 5y ago
  I think it's only ghosting if you break off a conversation, not if you never start one. If I send you Viagra spam and you don't reply that's clearly not ghosting.
  - MereInterest 5y ago
    I think "ghosting" is also used when one person breaks off a conversation, but the other person continues the conversation despite the conversation being broken off. At that point, an obnoxiously persistent person may conclude that that are being ghosted, rather than noticing that the conversation was over.
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  Ignoring some recruiter you've never heard of isn't 'ghosting'. 'Ghosting' is when someone you know, and have a reasonable expectation will take your calls, suddenly stops taking them, without explanation. It's a discourteous and lazy way of dumping a romantic interest.
  - N00bN00b 5y ago
    >It's a discourteous and lazy way of dumping a romantic interest. Language isn't fixed, the meaning of words, especially "new" words (and ghosting is a new verb) changes over time. That was the original meaning, but it's now applied to all relationships. >Ghosting is by no means limited to long-term romantic relationships. Informal dating relationships, friendships, even work relationships may end with a form of ghosting. https://www.psycom.net/what-is-ghosting https://www.psycom.net/what-is-ghosting https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Ghosting https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Ghosting
    - denton-scratch 5y ago
      I was unclear (in the interest of brevity:-) For clarity, I didn't mean that ghosting was only to do with dumping partners. I suppose I was suggesting that that's the canonical example.
      - N00bN00b 5y ago
        Ah alright. I thought you didn't know. Have a good one.
bitwize 5y ago
You're obviously not a woman who has had to deal with potentially threatening people in your love life. Among women ghosting is 100% a legitimate way to refuse a second/third/etc. date. In business, companies routinely ghost candidates they're not interested in because of the hassle and risk in interacting with candidates who are clearly no-hires. You don't owe anyone with whom you do not have a solid established relationship an interaction.
- technothrasher 5y ago
  > Among women ghosting is 100% a legitimate way to refuse a second/third/etc. date. Even back in the prehistoric times of my dating days, which was before I recall the term "ghosting" existed, it wasn't an uncommon thing. It might have been disappointing on occasion, but I never found it "rude". It wasn't very hard to take the hint and move on.
- slipframe 5y ago
  Rational as it may be, it's still rude.
- arendtio 5y ago
  I think there is a fine line between 'rude' and 'appropriate' in this case. - Simply stopping to respond to requests without signaling in any way, that you are not interested in continuing the interaction is rude (aka ghosting). - Signaling even just once that you would not like to continue the interaction (as clearly and polite as possible) and ignoring the other side from that point on is appropriate. Even though you might not 'owe anyone' anything, humans typically have socially accepted behavior patterns. So the argument is less about what you must do and more about what the majority of people around you consider good style. However, these things might differ between cultures and social circles.
hellbannedguy 5y ago
It's a word we need to stop using. Along with "Flexing". I had this one English teacher who squashed any interest in writing after I took his class. He was known as Red because that's what color our papers were when he was finished grading them. He did say a few thing that felt right. One was just don't use cliches. The other was don't use slang.
- kennywinker 5y ago
  Shakespeare would probably have some strong, formerly slang, words to say about your English teacher's take on using slang. Today's synonyms are yesterdays slang, and arguing against embracing the fluidity of language is just saying dead old white guys have a monopoly on inventing words.

duxup 5y ago

I understand how 'find a lawyer' is less than helpful but isn't your advice just 'find a lawyer ... that your competitors suggest'. Competitors who by default do not have your best interests in mind. Is there any real difference / likelihood of a good outcome there? Ultimately I see little difference in the potential of "most lawyers will happily take your money without necessarily having an expedient path to resolution for a small one-person company".

dmabram 5y ago
Probably because you haven't dealt with many lawyers :-). Yes, there's a huge difference. The advice is geared towards finding a lawyer who can achieve an optimal outcome at lowest cost. Any competent IP attorney can accept the case. The difference in cost is multiple orders of magnitude. At worst some of your competitors will ignore your request. But like I said, I have been through similar situations. Without delving into too many details, I had competitors who had no reason to help go so far beyond just a referral that years later I am still grateful. Once you've been burned by one of these trolls, you have a bit of a bond with other victims I guess.
mh8h 5y ago
In the case of a patent troll, the competitors are probably also on the future target list. It's in their interest to help fight this troll.
- duxup 5y ago
  Or they already paid / cut a deal... This idea that they might care is just an assumption.
- matmann2001 5y ago
  I know it's just TV, but this situation played out differently on Silicon Valley. Instead, the competitors hopped to the front of the line to pay off the patent troll before a successful case emboldened the troll to raise their price. Has anyone actually heard of things playing out this way in reality?
  - jusssi 5y ago
    I wonder if paying the troll wouldn't just get them more trolls, now that they appear to be a soft target?
dahart 5y ago
There is a huge world of difference between cold calling lawyers from the phone book and getting a referral to someone who’s dealt with the same situation and had the outcome you seek. This becomes clear if you ever try to ‘find a lawyer’ without guidance. > Competitors who by default do not have your best interests in mind. FWIW ‘competitors’ are not enemies or out to sink you in all but the most extreme cases. Two things that are definitely a bigger danger to a small startup are: yourself, and patent trolls.
Rantenki 5y ago
In this case, your competitors DO have your best interests in mind. They have to understand that they are next on the list of troll targets, since they are offering a product that likely uses similar technologies.
- duxup 5y ago
  Unless they already made a deal or hope that it drives their competitor out of business while they deal with it on their own. There's no reason to assume they'll be cooperative.
fencepost 5y ago
isn't your advice just 'find a lawyer ... that your competitors suggest'. Competitors who by default do not have your best interests in mind. Just because you're nominally competitors serving the same market doesn't mean you can't work nicely together. In many cases the true competition is 'people who don't understand how much they need our products.'

major505 5y ago

I'm curious. Can you counter sue a company like that? Since they do affect productive companies, that must be some law against that...

shmerl 5y ago
You'd think it should be a law against racketeering (something like RICO). Some tried to use that against patent trolls, but it didn't work.
- oh_sigh 5y ago
  As long as the patent is valid there is nothing racketeering about it.
  - shmerl 5y ago
    You can assume in the vast majority of cases patent trolls don't have valid patents. And if even if they are "valid", the patent system is so messed up, that they have to be invalid in reality. Trolls' method is exactly racketeering because it's extorting money using threat tactics. "You don't want something worse happening to you? Better pay up XYZ amount!". It's not going get much more classic protection racket than that. Except they threaten not with beating you up, but with you spending millions on court cases. I'd say trolls getting jail time for this garbage should be a good medicine for them.
    - oh_sigh 5y ago
      Without knowing the content of the patents(merely that they are valid) - would you be able to differentiate between a patent troll and someone with a great patent that wants their hard work licensed instead of taken for free?
      - coldpie 5y ago
        Who is taking anything for free? Do you think people go read through the patent database to get product ideas? If I create a product and bring it to market without any knowledge of your patent, why should I pay you just because you invented it earlier and then sat on it?
        oh_sigh 5y ago
        I don't think any judge is going to care much if you say you didn't read their patent before infringing on their patent.
        gpm 5y ago
        They will, intentional infringement is worse than accidental infringement, but both are illegal. (not a lawyer...)
        oh_sigh 5y ago
        Sure, but I meant that it won't materially affect the finding of whether infringement occurred, willful or accidental.
        Dylan16807 5y ago
        That wasn't the question. It was whether hard work is being taken for free.
        oh_sigh 5y ago
        I know what the question was since I literally asked it
        pbhjpbhj 5y ago
        It's not _just_ because you invented it earlier, you also have to disclose it in a way that makes it workable. The disclosure is supposed to drive innovation and use of innovations; that's the patent deal, the monopoly is "paid" for with disclosure. Aside, in the UK there's compulsory licensing (UKPA Section 48x to prevent people from inventing stuff and refusing to license it (at reasonable terms), too.
        nrdvana 5y ago
        > “The disclosure is supposed to drive innovation” And that is the grand joke of the patent system.
    - rhino369 5y ago
      >You can assume in the vast majority of cases patent trolls don't have valid patents. Right, but law actually presumes they are valid. Which is why its tough to go after a troll for asserting a valid patent.
  - treeman79 5y ago
    Had a professor who wat was at big company. Forget which. IBM came in with a list of patents that were being violated. Professor went through the list and managed to document fully how each one didn’t apply to company. One of which was for pythagorean theorem. They had another meeting to go over it with IBM to show results. Not impressed IBM said fine you don’t violate those. We have a hundred thousand more patents. Are you buying a license for these, or should we go find more that you “violate” Company purchased a license. This was 20 years ago.
    - jjeaff 5y ago
      That is basically just a rephrasing of, "This is an awfully nice store you got here. Would be a shame if something were to happen to it."
      - mywittyname 5y ago
        I've always wondered if sublicensing was a way to get around this. Instead of owning the core technology itself, set up an offshore holding company to own the technology rights, then "license" them out. The main company probably can't be sued since they have a legal contract for the tech and if they go after the holding company, fine, the parent company can then "license" tech from another, similar holding company.
        shmerl 5y ago
        If you compare patents to weapons, the above is like privateering. For big companies there is also MAD analogy.
        mywittyname 5y ago
        So I think what I'm talking about his more of a decoy than a privateer. I think of privateering as plausible deniability in attacking someone. Whereas, what I'm suggesting is more structuring a business such that they can't be sued for patent infringement since they don't own the technology that is allegedly infringing. So if your company receives a cease-and-desist letter, your lawyers can respond with a contract from Core Technology LLC granting you license to use the technology as you deem if, and that the Patent Troll needs to contact Core Technology LLC if they have patent issues. In the mean time, you can stop licensing from Core Technology LLC and instead move to a new vendor, Core Technology II LLC, who offers an improved product anyway. The goal being to make it not worth pursuing your business.
- Trias11 5y ago
  Giving away the idea to drug lord might work. When troll will try to annoy the new owner - the troll will be dealt with in the way he deserves.
- quickthrower2 5y ago
  We just need a “well duh!” Doctrine on the patent. If you can ask and answer it as an intern interview question (e.g. how to cache a QR code database)
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    The patents already include that, they are meant to be only given on things that are not standard practice or obvious to any competent proffesional. Just software patents fucked it up
coldpie 5y ago
I think these days inter partes review is the way these trolls are slain.
- chalst 5y ago
  Not familiar with this idea, I searched and found this https://www.gearhartlaw.com/2016-9-8-a-way-to-defeat-a-troll-inter-partes-review/ https://www.gearhartlaw.com/2016-9-8-a-way-to-defeat-a-troll... IIUC, inter partes review is a relatively recent (9 y.o.?) patent law practice that allows 3rd parties to challenge patents directly to the patent office any time between patent award and expiry. I had thought there was only a short period this could be done after award of the patent.
  - nceqs3 5y ago
    Yeah but it costs 20k
    - bdowling 5y ago
      It's more than that. The fee to request the IPR is $19,000, plus $375 for each claim in excess of 20. If the USPTO decides to institute the IPR, the post-institution fee is $22,500, plus $750 for each claim in excess of 20. [0] Attorney's fees will be far more than these amounts. [0] https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/retrieveECFR?n=37y1.0.1.3.12#se37.1.42_115 https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/retrieveECFR?n=37y1.0.1.3.12#se...
      - nceqs3 5y ago
        Funny how Obama pushed this as a good thing for small inventors.
        bdowling 5y ago
        Right? The AIA made it easier and cheaper (*) for big companies to invalidate the patents of small inventors who try to assert their patents against them. It reduced the amount of money that big companies will pay to license a patent because the threat of an infringement lawsuit became less valuable. It literally took value from small inventors and handed it to big business. (*) Edit: An IPR may seem expensive (~$500k is average), but if successful it is much cheaper than winning a patent infringement lawsuit ($millions).
erik998 5y ago
lotnet.com Lawsuits from Patent Assertion Entities (PAEs, sometimes called “patent trolls”) can be a drain on resources for any company. With software a primary PAE target, and software becoming an integral part of all industries — putting nearly all companies at risk of being sued. That’s why leading companies have come together to form a collaborative, voluntary community to reduce this risk – one that grows in importance as the economic environment becomes increasingly uncertain.
linsomniac 5y ago
Can you counter sue? Absolutely! But, as I tell my kids: Just because you're right doesn't mean you won't go bankrupt proving it in a court of law.
- iajrz 5y ago
  the court can remain unconvinced longer than you can stay solvent
rolph 5y ago
perhaps patenting the entire process of, or a critical component of patent trolling, would be feasible
- zem 5y ago
  prior art: http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20140301 http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20140301
crucialfelix 5y ago
It's usually cheaper to settle than to go to court. A company I worked for got hit (apparently using TLS violates their patent. Even though it's the browser that initiated the connection). Company simply paid up because it was cheaper.
- desine 5y ago
  Unfortunately this is one of those instances where looking out for oneself (in a business sense) does more harm to society than eating the costs and fighting the battle. IANASBO (I am not a Small Business Owner) so I can't say I wouldn't necessarily do any different, sadly. But I like to think I would.

mraza007 5y ago

HN never fails to amazes me this is one of the best community where people from all backgrounds can take part in discussion And I wish all the best

ahmedalsudani 5y ago
Looking forward to the day a patent troll comments on a discussion
- ethbr0 5y ago
  People take enough cheap shots at adtech folks, when they offer their perspective. I assume the patent troll approach would be that they're returning value to their investors, while following the law as it stands.
  - treeman79 5y ago
    Was in adtech for awhile. Glad to be out of it. Lots of neat problems to solve. But yeah it was super creepy
  - silexia 5y ago
    I hope the entire patent system is simply dissolved. Patents are an artificial restriction on free trade that prevents competition and put profits in the pockets of the greedy undeserving.
    - worik 5y ago
      Patents have their uses. Trade secrets are worse. We should not through out the baby with the bathwater....
      - krastanov 5y ago
        Are trade secrets really worse? My (uninformed, anecdotal, unsubstantiated) intuition is that reverse engineering, or even just the knowledge that something is possible, ensures that trade secrets are no barrier to progress. While patents definitely seem like a barrier.
        tintor 5y ago
        If company is providing a service instead of selling products then reverse engineering is much much harder or not possible at all. Example: Are you going to reverse self-driving code from a vehicle giving you are ride? Or a server behind an API?
        krastanov 5y ago
        No, but knowing a solution exists makes finding the solution orders of magnitude easier.
      - hellbannedguy 5y ago
        I used to think Patents had their uses. I looked into just the fees to file a patent, and it's for middle class, upper class folks, institutions, and companies. The poor guy tinkering around in his wood shed is not filing patents. Maybe not throwing out all patents us a good idea? I don't know, but an American citizen (low income) all fees shouid be eliminated. I would like to see a limit on patents anyone can file, or a graduated fee structure? 1 patent free. (low income. $300 everyone else) 2 patent $500 3 patent $500,000 4 patent $1,000,000,000 This would at least limit those guys patenting round corners?
    - elcomet 5y ago
      But don't you believe it encourages innovation ? That's the main argument in favor of patents
      - nrdvana 5y ago
        I think it stalls more innovation than it encourages, and generally prevents new entry into a technology space, because the existing players have all the patents that a new player would need to get started. The fewer players you have in a technology space, the less innovation there will be, because “necessity is the mother of invention” and people don’t generally start working on an idea unless they are exposed to the problems of that field. In theory, a non-player could start a research shop and then sell the results of their research in the form of a patent, and this happens sometimes, but just as often the industry decides they don’t want to pay, and leaves the idea dead until the patent expires. My pet example is the mosquito laser. They invented it at MIT, and showed that it could effectively shoot down mosquitos that pass between posts. The hardware costs were a bit high, but would come down drastically if someone mass-produced custom chips for it. But, the overall idea is patented, and currently held by a “think tank” licensing company, and no product has emerged. I can only assume that it is because their licensing demands are too high. I’d be happy to start my own company to build mosquito lasers, but I’m sure that their licensing costs would kill any profit from it, so I don’t. And so the world is left with no mosquito lasers for more than a decade. If you want another extreme example, the 3D printer craze was kicked off by the expiration of a patent on the FDM process: https://www.fabbaloo.com/blog/2020/3/2/the-challenge-and-opportunity-of-3d-printing-patent-684116b2 https://www.fabbaloo.com/blog/2020/3/2/the-challenge-and-opp... The innovation in the 3D printer space probably lost 10 years due to that patent. One possible solution to the problem, without throwing out the entire patent system, would be to create a mandatory licensing system with fixed rates. For example, if you know that your design is about 60% patented, and there is a law that says 20% of your profits have to be given to the patent holder, then you might be able to go ahead and make the product and still turn a reasonable profit. The patent holders would get paid something and the products would continue being innovated without these stupid wait-17-years delays. Also it would put less severe stake on the patents, so people could just argue out the details in court about who gets how much money without worrying that it was going to bankrupt a company or kill the product line.
    - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
      "Patents are an artificial restriction on free trade" So is copyright, without them both the concept of IP dissapears. Patents at least have to be usefull, and documented publically for future use. Copyright of code by comparison is an abomination, it does something to your smartphone and data, you have no right to inspect it or change it.
  - ajb 5y ago
    That works both ways - the IP folks have their own echo chamber. I remember reading one article on an IP blog which mentioned that of course IP laywers know much more about what would help innovation than engineers.
- speedgoose 5y ago
  It happens. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26759051 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26759051
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
  Largest "patent troll" in history was brainchild of and founded by former Microsoft CTO. The person who coined the term "patent troll" helped him start the company. He came from Intel. The saddest part of the idea of "trolling" as a "business" is that it has spread into other areas, outside IT. "Patent trolling" is easy to spot when the patents are software patents as so many software patent are low quality. However, the patent quality problem is not nearly as acute in other industries. There are in fact legitimate small inventors who must approach large companies, and that situation predates the hardware and software industries, but it was software and hardware people that created this idea of the "patent troll". If there was a "bad" situation that existed before Intellectual Ventures was founded, no solution was offered by those who were negatively affected. Rather, the approach taken was "If you can't beat `em, join `em." One could argue, as a result, the situation went from bad to worse.
  - rot13xor 5y ago
    If the patents are legitimate it seems like a business model similar to debt collectors or "cash now for annuity" companies. A small company might have a winnable case of damages but doesn't have the resources or risk appetite to take the case to trial. It's a rational decision to sell off the claim to another company for X% of the expected value and let them take risk of enforcing the claim.
    - gpm 5y ago
      Taking a look around this thread should make it clear that even if patents are legitimate, many patent trolls are not. They are frequently going after entities that are not actually infringing, or threatening people with obviously invalid patents, because the legal system makes it cheaper to pay the troll than go to court, even if you will win. (But you probably have a point that if patents are legitimate than an otherwise ethical patent troll would also be legitimate)
      - hvis 5y ago
        > But you probably have a point that if patents are legitimate than an otherwise ethical patent troll would also be legitimate I'm not sure it's possible to be an "ethical" patent troll. It is a structure explicitly chosen to minimize any collateral in case their patents are thrown out in court, claims are invalidated, and they have to pay to for the counterpart's expenses (and which point the company is simply dissolved, with little to no damage to the owners). If somebody is so sure their patents are valid, let them form a "real" company which utilizes said patents to bring in revenue, and let that company go to court with competitors and bear the risk of having to pay for frivolous lawsuits. Not that I think that that software should ever be patentable, of course.
- DrNuke 5y ago
  Well, they come in different shapes and tunes: without talking hackers or espionage, you also have “investors” kindly asking for details of your software. In fact, in many fields (and mine, materials informatics), you can file a patent for the end product of your software (novel alloys, in my case) while keeping your code entirely private. How could they troll you then? Patents make their own industry as well.

gpm 5y ago

I really don't Innovation seems to come from - Academics, who would be doing the same thing regardless of patent revenue - Entrepreneurs (and people working for small companies), who are hurt much more by the existence of the patent system than the potential revenue from it. - People working for big companies, who would almost always be building the exact same product if the patent system didn't exist, except they wouldn't have to worry about working around competitors patents. Certainly the patent system makes some people money, but it mostly seems to be - Lawyers (for obvious reasons) - Owners of already very large and no longer very innovative big companies, who had the time to build up a war chest of patents. I don't particularly believe that giving extra money to either of those groups encourages innovation, and I certainly don't believe it encourages innovation enough to make up the harm it does to people attempting to be entrepreneurs, people having to work around patents, and so on. --- One potential exception to this is bio related industries, which are different in that patents are often the primary product a company produces, instead of a byproduct produced by engineering work that happens for other reasons. Without patents you would need to find another way to fund that work, if you want it to happen. I wouldn't call most of that work particularly innovative though, it's mostly just very expensive mind numbing work like "trying a million different possible drugs" and "running huge human trials" and so on. I would generally prefer that the bio work be funded by a different system, because I don't think the patent system produces good outcomes for society. It creates perverted incentives to always be creating new drugs, instead of finding new ways to use old ones. It creates perverted incentives to not build on each others work. It means that drug companies have the ability to charge substantially more than the cost of production for drugs they produce, meaning people who could be treated cheaply in an optimal system go untreated (note: The marginal cost of treating more people is really small since the expensive part is the R&D that already happened). Moreover it forces drug companies to do that if they want to recoup their R&D costs. Something like direct government subsidies to companies who discover drugs that people end up using (for medical purposes) seems like a better solution. There are a million variations on that, but I'd claim that basically any variation on that is probably better than patents.

jlokier 5y ago

I believe we would have released open source FPGAs and the accompanying toolchain about 18 years ago if it wasn't for patents. I was getting quite into it, but the patent minefield made it financially too worrying to continue, and it also put off potential collaborators at the time. People literally warned me "you will lose your home - I'm not willing to take that risk". I didn't have a home to lose :p but it was still a downer. And a novel high performance x86 CPU design. x86 is patented thoroughly, although now it ought to be ok to ship one that has the features from about 20 years ago. I would still recommend to be cautious! And an ARM one. ARM is known to some in the field as a company with an army of lawyers after all. A lot of innovation happens when patents expire. Other people's open source FPGA designs are shipping now (and kudos to the designers - they are really well implemented!), in part thanks to many of the basic patents on FPGAs expiring about now. I would be quite surprised if RISC-V implementations aren't dependent on a number of key patents having expired by now. FDM 3D printing (where hot plastic is squirted through a moving nozzle) became popular when the patents on it expired. Some people into open source 3D printing think it happened because that's when people innovated. They did innovate at making it low cost, but the expiry of the patents was a factor too. At the moment I'm building a specialised high-performance database engine, and I have to explicitly avoid some of the obvious on-disk data layouts because they turn out to be patented. It's annoying having to come up with some "clever" alternative, but I'll find a way. I don't know if patents encourage innovation on balance, but they've definitely prevented me from shipping some fairly advanced things I've worked on in the past. I don't begrudge the companies or the system, but I will argue that there is plenty of innovation impeded by it, and in my experience I have never worked anywhere that patents helped, only places where they hindered. It could happen but it hasn't yet. When I discussed this with a patent attorney once, there was a fascinating gulf between people who dream up patentable (or already patented) solutions almost casually on demand when faced with a problem, and people who think this is impossible and such insights are precious gems that rarely occur. I'm sure it differs between fields, and I know there are some very clever patents. But in software and to an extent hardware, the two fields I'm most familiar with, most patents seem to cover natural solutions to a problem which would occur to anyone skilled in the area when faced with that particular problem.

gpm 5y ago
Step 1 for being an ethical patent troll would be having enough assets that you aren't just a judgement proof vehicle for lawsuits, but there's no reason that isn't possible. A diverse portfolio of legitimate patents, a healthy bank account, and voila. There are a variety of reasons why forming a "real company" that produces products might not be practical. For example you might be in a field where the startup costs for a competitive company is in the billions (silicon manufacturing), or that is a natural monopoly already monopolized by one or two big companies (operating systems). Your competitors also have patents on things that you would need to be competitive and for whatever reason you aren't willing to license them. Or really you might just not be well suited to running a company, bad at managing people or whatever, and if patents are legitimate it seems like they are legitimate regardless of whether or not you want to start a company. (PS. I'm generally against patents, and strongly against software patents, but that's neither here nor there on whether or not patent trolls are legitimate under the assumption that patents are)
- hvis 5y ago
  I'm not sure it's feasible to meaningfully regulate/legislate what a "healthy bank account" is for such a company. There is always risk that, when the going gets tough, the company will transfer funds (e.g. by purchasing some "consultation services" from a tightly-controlled shell company), or that it will get into too many lawsuits, losses on which will still exceed the available balance. > There are a variety of reasons why forming a "real company" that produces products might not be practical. For example you might be in a field where the startup costs for a competitive company is in the billions (silicon manufacturing), or that is a natural monopoly already monopolized by one or two big companies (operating systems). Your competitors also have patents on things that you would need to be competitive and for whatever reason you aren't willing to license them. But what are you doing with those patents, then? As much as we both consider them to be a bad idea, patents are supposed to be a vehicle to promote tangible advancements in the field, to encourage development and manufacturing. If you don't produce anything but just stop anybody else from doing that, or just collect rent by granting out permissions, you are not using patents "correctly".
  - gpm 5y ago
    > I'm not sure it's feasible to meaningfully regulate/legislate what a "healthy bank account" is for such a company. I'm not sure it is either, the law is a blunt tool and it's not always possible to legislate things like "be ethical". One potential way to do legislate this is to require that plaintiffs place funds in escrow pending the outcome of the case, to pay for the other sides fees if they lose. Occasionally courts will already order this under current law. I'm not going to generally advocate for that as a good idea though, I think it probably has a lot of side effects and I haven't put enough thought into it to be sure it is a good idea. > But what are you doing with those patents, then? As much as we both consider them to be a bad idea, patents are supposed to be a vehicle to promote tangible advancements in the field, to encourage development and manufacturing. If you don't produce anything but just stop anybody else from doing that, or just collect rent by granting out permissions, you are not using patents "correctly". Theoretically, it was the act of inventing that occurred prior to the award of the patent that the patent is supposed to be rewarding. The reward is precisely the ability to extract rent from people who use the invention (whether by making it and selling devices at a premium, or licensing the patent). You see this mechanism actually function in pharmaceuticals for instance, because patents are so valuable there are companies that pour resources into inventing new drugs that they can patent. (I have other issues with patents in this industry, I wrote about them elsewhere in this comment thread, but the reward mechanism really does motivate useful work here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27587034 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27587034)
    - hvis 5y ago
      > One potential way to do legislate this is to require that plaintiffs place funds in escrow pending the outcome of the case, to pay for the other sides fees if they lose. Occasionally courts will already order this under current law. I'm not going to generally advocate for that as a good idea though, I think it probably has a lot of side effects and I haven't put enough thought into it to be sure it is a good idea. That's an interesting direction, but how does the collateral compare to the average lawsuit's costs? What happens if the suit drags on, exceeding the collateral, do the parties just agree to disagree and drop it? I could also be a small company, on the defending side, which is the frequent case in patent trolling scenarios. I shouldn't be barred from defending myself in court if I don't have the ability to post the collateral up front (if I'm convinced my case is strong, at least). On the flip side, a small IP owner should still be able to sue a giant company that is violating their patents/copyrights/etc. Even if the said company has a lot of money and is liable to create huge attorney bills. But I suppose if the escrow for plaintiffs becomes more common, it's a small price to pay for the benefit of the whole ecosystem. > You see this mechanism actually function in pharmaceuticals for instance, because patents are so valuable there are companies that pour resources into inventing new drugs that they can patent. (I have other issues with patents in this industry, I wrote about them elsewhere in this comment thread, but the reward mechanism really does motivate useful work here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27587034 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27587034) Good points on the pharma industry. But okay, let's agree that there are pharma companies (research laboratories, etc) that don't ever do the end production themselves. Perhaps that's even a good state of affairs (of which I'm less certain). Still, those companies are "real", and they have financing and budgets for stuff other than the patent lawsuits. They have to do the said research and put quite a lot of money in it (which is what makes those patents valuable and arguably a benefit to society as a whole), and that distinguishes them from an average patent troll.
      - gpm 5y ago
        Collateral requirements would generally only apply to plaintiffs (the people suing), requiring collateral for the defendant is obviously problematic... You would expect the value to be set by the court as an approximation of the amount of fees that they might award to the defendant (which in turn is an approximation of what a reasonable defense might cost), as the lawsuit goes on you would expect the court to periodically increase the collateral requirements on the plaintiff, since the total cost to defend the suit has gone up. Small, legitimate, companies having to put up collateral is an unfortunate side effect, but if they have good claims (and can convince a lender of that) they should be able to finance it... so that's probably not the end of the world? It does seem like a bit of an access to justice problem, not really sure how I feel about it. > They have to do the said research and put quite a lot of money in it (which is what makes those patents valuable and arguably a benefit to society as a whole), and that distinguishes them from an average patent troll. This is true if they license the patent directly to the manufacturers, but that's not necessarily the case. It seems entirely reasonable for a company to discover a drug, patent it (so they have something to sell), and then sell the patent to another company that deals with licensing it out to drug companies. A license management company (aka patent troll) in the middle comes with a number of benefits: - Chances are there's still a lot of risk associated with that drug, e.g. it might fail in human trials, by selling the patent immediately you reduce your risk. - Licensing patents is not your core competency as a drug discovery company, it makes sense to have an entity that handles licensing for the patents invented by many different drug-discovery companies. - You might, for whatever reason, want to stop operating as a drug discovery company. Maybe you want to retire. This shouldn't wipe out the worth of your previous work. Generally, assets being transferable seems like a good thing. A lot of our society is based upon that principle... and if patents are transferable, it seems inconsistent to say "you can do X with asset Y, and so can most other companies, but not if the only thing a company does is doing X to assets Y". Inconsistencies like that generally lead to weird arbitrage opportunities and inefficiencies in society...