Slightly offtopic, but Article One recently launched a crowd-funding project[1] aimed at helping start ups affected by actual patent trolls. According to the p

Slightly offtopic, but Article One recently launched a crowd-funding project[1] aimed at helping start ups affected by actual patent trolls. According to the project page, "Our goal is to launch and maintain a completely free, data-­rich, up­-to-­date, member­-supported database that small companies can use to help defend against patent trolls." They are starting with a patent owned by Treehouse Avatar Technologies regarding gaming avatars. Treehouse has been targeting indie game developers using US 8180858[2]. Eventually, they plan to build a prior art database targeting the most abused patents and provide small start-ups with free access. [1] http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/operation-ninja-s-t-a-r-help-fight-patent-trolls http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/operation-ninja-s-t-a-r-he... [2] http://google.com/patents/US8180858 http://google.com/patents/US8180858