"So the question is, is there a way to tell the patent troll to go screw himself without jeopardizing our trustworthiness with our real customers?" (further do

"So the question is, is there a way to tell the patent troll to go screw himself without jeopardizing our trustworthiness with our real customers?" (further down in this thread you also said): "Trust me, I don't feel good about helping a patent troll. I just don't see any sort of justifiable policy that would allow for us to act any differently." Doesn't need to be "justifiable". "Justifiable" to? You are, as was said by the sheriff played by Roy Schieder In Jaws "the Chief of Police". And you're not a large corporation (yet) where you have to issue a memo which says "don't sell to patent trolls " either. You can do whatever you want to deflect or keep any business and nobody needs to know about it. You can simply be passive aggressive with any customer. You don't return phone calls. You don't setup demo dates. You don't get back to them without pricing or details or answers to questions they have. Almost everyone will leave and just think you are a typical non-responsive business and they will go elsewhere. Or you can quote them a high price to scare them away. There are dozens of "not in the book" ways you can get people to not give you business. Bad service is only one. It's not that hard. And you don't have to announce it to the world or justify it to anyone. It's done quietly. This happens everyday in business for many reasons (that don't even have to do with anything objectionable). A salesman will spend his time with someone who is going to give him more business and be lackadaisical with someone that appears to be a trifler. Lawyers will build their business with any client then they will thin those clients by being less responsive and/or jacking up billing rates. The clients leave. They don't announce "you are not important anymore". It just happens. Added: "jeopardizing our trustworthiness with our real customers" The point is to do it where the other customers don't know you are doing this. I'm assuming there are many things in your business everyday that you don't reveal to current customers.