7 ms·

I wonder if it's possible to make some sort of patent troll insurance company. Basically a company that attempts to collect as many patents as possible to weap

I wonder if it's possible to make some sort of patent troll insurance company. Basically a company that attempts to collect as many patents as possible to weaponize against trolls and then provides legal protection to clients from trolls. The clients can share their patents with the insurance company too to help them become more powerful. Then when sued by a troll the insurance company goes scorched earth to destroy them as a matter of policy. So their clients get the benefit of also deterring suits just because they're represented by this insurance company.

qbasic_forever 5y ago
Hold on, I'm going to go patent this idea. :)
alisonkisk 5y ago
1. This is called a patent pool. It's very common. 2. You can't sue a parent troll for patent infringement, since they don't have any technology business. They are only "companies" on paper.
- staticautomatic 5y ago
  You can preemptively sue them, albeit not for infringing on your IP. It’s called declaratory relief.
  - _jal 5y ago
    You can only try that if you know they exist.
    - staticautomatic 5y ago
      Sure, but they have to come up for air sooner or later.
  - ineedasername 5y ago
    Unfortunately it would basically be an ongoing DDoS on the court system to try to get declaratory relief for existing garbage patents and the never ending stream if them created every day.
    - staticautomatic 5y ago
      Maybe. I’m not sure anyone has tried it. It wouldn’t work against a party like Intellectual Ventures but in theory you might be able to take out a nascent troll with a smaller war chest, and if you win they might have a tough time selling off their portfolio.
foodstances 5y ago
https://lotnet.com/ https://lotnet.com/
- rawtxapp 5y ago
  This is it, for companies that are not generating money, it's free to join too.
bjt 5y ago
See https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/06/defensive-patent-license-and-other-ways-beat-patent-system https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/06/defensive-patent-licen... I did some work on this years before the article, while in law school. Seems to be defunct now.
akdor1154 5y ago
Might work, still sounds like a protection racket though.
ineedasername 5y ago
Unfortunately the economics of insurance & low settlement demands from patent trolls would simply come into sync at some point. This is because patent trolling is a low effort attack, while fighting them is a high effort activity. With an insurance company it would be no different: The pool of money from premiums still wouldn't be enough to fight all of the trolls because they would also all be pooled. It's cheaper to just collect premiums, payout claims as little as possible, and if claims get too high you re-assess your actuarial tables and raise premiums where appropriate. Insurance companies simply aren't in the business of solving the root-cause of any given problem. They're in the business of risk analysis & pooled risk & selling financial risk mitigation on that basis.
- mschuster91 5y ago
  > Insurance companies simply aren't in the business of solving the root-cause of any given problem. They're in the business of risk analysis & pooled risk & selling financial risk mitigation on that basis. Insurance companies generally hold vast amounts of assets - and some already shift their investment strategy based on policy, e.g. climate change and other sustainability goals (see https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/our-insights/how-insurance-can-help-combat-climate-change https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/our-i...), work with large customers to reduce their risk exposure or indirectly go after the root causes, e.g. by exiting risk-prone markets (basically, no insurance any more for flood or fire prone areas).
  - ineedasername 5y ago
    Risk reduction is a little different than attempting to solve the root cause. It's also notable that risk reduction generally doesn't include launching massive litigation initiatives. An important distinction is that insurance companies try to reduce risk so that they reduce claims, not solve the root problem. In fact solving the problem could put them out of business. Any effort towards risk reduction is to maximize profit, not solve the problem. I also don't see any market that insurance companies could exit to reduced patent trolling.
- wpietri 5y ago
6510 5y ago
You could gather a bunch of anons on some hard to track website then mail bricks and letters to them. Every envelope has to be opened. The content can be the usual wordy mess and be made to look a lot like the official kind of mail they receive so that it all has to be kept and sorted to make sure nothing important is skipped.
hellbannedguy 5y ago
This is a good idea. I'm surprised a clever 501c3 isn't quietly buying up patents, and burying them, or using them as legal weapons against companies that abuse the patent system. Just did a quick search, and there is a company. https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-takes-another-step-to-fight-patent-trolls-by-joining-the-lot-network/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-takes-another-step-t...
URSpider94 5y ago
There's a ton of asymmetry that makes this not work. One, patent trolls are "non-practicing entities". They don't build anything, or do anything other than sue people, so you can t sue them for infringement of patents. Two they shard their portfolio into very small chunks, often one patent per company. If you knock down one patent, you just take out that one patent. Three, they are usually run by lawyers, so their cost to attack is just their time, whereas you'll have to hire an attorney at market rate to respond. Four, if things get hairy, they can almost always just dismiss the case, and then you lose any claim you have against them, because they're not suing you any more. It's tricky to get counterclaims set up so you can continue grinding them down after they try to dismiss - and it will cost you money. And, at the end of the day, you'll at best invalidate their one patent.
lozaning 5y ago
>Basically a company that attempts to collect as many patents as possible to weaponize You've more or less explained IBM. You cant come at IBM because their patent portfolio is so vast, they you're bound to be doing something that infringes on some patent they have. When I working there you wouldn't get promoted from being an IC to a manager unless you had at least 10 patents to your name during your tenure there.
lathiat 5y ago
See also the Open Invention Network: https://openinventionnetwork.com/ https://openinventionnetwork.com/
qohen 5y ago
I wonder if it's possible to make some sort of patent troll insurance company. There have been efforts along these lines, e.g.: RPX [0] and Allied Security Trust [1]. And the general idea is called Defensive Patent Aggregation [2]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPX_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPX_Corporation [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_Security_Trust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_Security_Trust [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_patent_aggregation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_patent_aggregation

qbasic_forever 5y ago

Hold on, I'm going to go patent this idea. :)

alisonkisk 5y ago

1. This is called a patent pool. It's very common. 2. You can't sue a parent troll for patent infringement, since they don't have any technology business. They are only "companies" on paper.

staticautomatic 5y ago
You can preemptively sue them, albeit not for infringing on your IP. It’s called declaratory relief.
- _jal 5y ago
  You can only try that if you know they exist.
  - staticautomatic 5y ago
    Sure, but they have to come up for air sooner or later.
- ineedasername 5y ago
  Unfortunately it would basically be an ongoing DDoS on the court system to try to get declaratory relief for existing garbage patents and the never ending stream if them created every day.
  - staticautomatic 5y ago
    Maybe. I’m not sure anyone has tried it. It wouldn’t work against a party like Intellectual Ventures but in theory you might be able to take out a nascent troll with a smaller war chest, and if you win they might have a tough time selling off their portfolio.

foodstances 5y ago

https://lotnet.com/ https://lotnet.com/

rawtxapp 5y ago
This is it, for companies that are not generating money, it's free to join too.

bjt 5y ago

See https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/06/defensive-patent-license-and-other-ways-beat-patent-system https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/06/defensive-patent-licen... I did some work on this years before the article, while in law school. Seems to be defunct now.

akdor1154 5y ago

Might work, still sounds like a protection racket though.

ineedasername 5y ago

Unfortunately the economics of insurance & low settlement demands from patent trolls would simply come into sync at some point. This is because patent trolling is a low effort attack, while fighting them is a high effort activity. With an insurance company it would be no different: The pool of money from premiums still wouldn't be enough to fight all of the trolls because they would also all be pooled. It's cheaper to just collect premiums, payout claims as little as possible, and if claims get too high you re-assess your actuarial tables and raise premiums where appropriate. Insurance companies simply aren't in the business of solving the root-cause of any given problem. They're in the business of risk analysis & pooled risk & selling financial risk mitigation on that basis.

mschuster91 5y ago
> Insurance companies simply aren't in the business of solving the root-cause of any given problem. They're in the business of risk analysis & pooled risk & selling financial risk mitigation on that basis. Insurance companies generally hold vast amounts of assets - and some already shift their investment strategy based on policy, e.g. climate change and other sustainability goals (see https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/our-insights/how-insurance-can-help-combat-climate-change https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/our-i...), work with large customers to reduce their risk exposure or indirectly go after the root causes, e.g. by exiting risk-prone markets (basically, no insurance any more for flood or fire prone areas).
- ineedasername 5y ago
  Risk reduction is a little different than attempting to solve the root cause. It's also notable that risk reduction generally doesn't include launching massive litigation initiatives. An important distinction is that insurance companies try to reduce risk so that they reduce claims, not solve the root problem. In fact solving the problem could put them out of business. Any effort towards risk reduction is to maximize profit, not solve the problem. I also don't see any market that insurance companies could exit to reduced patent trolling.
wpietri 5y ago

6510 5y ago

You could gather a bunch of anons on some hard to track website then mail bricks and letters to them. Every envelope has to be opened. The content can be the usual wordy mess and be made to look a lot like the official kind of mail they receive so that it all has to be kept and sorted to make sure nothing important is skipped.

hellbannedguy 5y ago

This is a good idea. I'm surprised a clever 501c3 isn't quietly buying up patents, and burying them, or using them as legal weapons against companies that abuse the patent system. Just did a quick search, and there is a company. https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-takes-another-step-to-fight-patent-trolls-by-joining-the-lot-network/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-takes-another-step-t...

URSpider94 5y ago

There's a ton of asymmetry that makes this not work. One, patent trolls are "non-practicing entities". They don't build anything, or do anything other than sue people, so you can t sue them for infringement of patents. Two they shard their portfolio into very small chunks, often one patent per company. If you knock down one patent, you just take out that one patent. Three, they are usually run by lawyers, so their cost to attack is just their time, whereas you'll have to hire an attorney at market rate to respond. Four, if things get hairy, they can almost always just dismiss the case, and then you lose any claim you have against them, because they're not suing you any more. It's tricky to get counterclaims set up so you can continue grinding them down after they try to dismiss - and it will cost you money. And, at the end of the day, you'll at best invalidate their one patent.

lozaning 5y ago

>Basically a company that attempts to collect as many patents as possible to weaponize You've more or less explained IBM. You cant come at IBM because their patent portfolio is so vast, they you're bound to be doing something that infringes on some patent they have. When I working there you wouldn't get promoted from being an IC to a manager unless you had at least 10 patents to your name during your tenure there.

lathiat 5y ago

See also the Open Invention Network: https://openinventionnetwork.com/ https://openinventionnetwork.com/

qohen 5y ago

I wonder if it's possible to make some sort of patent troll insurance company. There have been efforts along these lines, e.g.: RPX [0] and Allied Security Trust [1]. And the general idea is called Defensive Patent Aggregation [2]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPX_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPX_Corporation [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_Security_Trust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_Security_Trust [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_patent_aggregation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_patent_aggregation