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The recent This American Life ep "When Patents Attack" (http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack http://www.thisamericanli
by TrevorBurnham 15y ago
The recent This American Life ep "When Patents Attack" (http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/w...) started with a segment on a startup called Fototime, which was very small (certainly under 25 people) and had to settle a patent suit at great expense. (As part of the settlement agreement, they aren't allowed to say how much; only that it was just short of what would have caused them to file for bankruptcy.)
- justinsb 15y agoFototime was threatened by a NPE (aka troll); I can't imagine this pledge could have helped them.
- TrevorBurnham 15y agoTrue. Incidentally, for those who are curious, the three patents used against Fototime (as well as more established companies like Flickr) can be found at http://www.google.com/patents?id=uiAPAAAAEBAJ http://www.google.com/patents?id=uiAPAAAAEBAJ, http://www.google.com/patents?id=0J8DAAAAEBAJ http://www.google.com/patents?id=0J8DAAAAEBAJ, and http://www.google.com/patents?id=-QEWAAAAEBAJ http://www.google.com/patents?id=-QEWAAAAEBAJ. The first two actually feel substantial and specific (probably too specific for Fototime to have been infringing); the third one is just a simple database schema and a flowchart, which is madness (though it, too, is so specific that it's unlikely that anyone was actually infringing).