[HN Gopher] A patent troll backs off
___________________________________________________________________
A patent troll backs off
Author : zdw
Score : 509 points
Date : 2021-10-26 13:45 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sparkfun.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sparkfun.com)
| alangibson wrote:
| Had anyone ever heard of businesses forming a mutual defense
| bloc? Every member could contribute to a pool of resources that
| gets tapped to go to the mat with trolls that sue a member.
|
| Sounds like troll insurance now that I read what I just wrote...
| schleck8 wrote:
| Isn't that legal insurance? It's a good idea though
| josaka wrote:
| I think rpx and unified patents do something like this.
| schleck8 wrote:
| Some folks are just not compatible with a cooperative society.
| mijoharas wrote:
| So, I've not read much of this kind of stuff before. Can someone
| tell me if the following response is just a standard legal way of
| talking: 43. For example, US Patent No. 5,592,405
| (Assignee Texas Instruments) discloses: "There is thus a
| need in the art for a system which handles multi-processors
| having multi-memories such that the address space from all
| of the memories is available to one or more processors
| concurrently[.]" 2:5-9. Answer: Altair Logix does not
| dispute the quoted language comes from U.S. Patent No.
| 5,592,405 to the extent it is quoted correctly. Altair denies the
| remaining allegations in paragraph 43.
|
| It's just very odd, as there is literally nothing else in the
| paragraph that they are "denying". Now it seems clear, that they
| just tack on "denies everything else in this paragraph" to every
| single thing they say, but why?
|
| Is it better to deny some unknown thing in case you miss it, than
| to not respond to it in a legal document? if so, why is that?
|
| Is there some other reason for it?
| josaka wrote:
| It's weird, but standard. These exchanges are a formal way of
| fleshing out what the parties do and do not dispute. Both sides
| limit what the agree to as much as they can with a straight
| face, and everything is qualified as much as possible to make
| it hard to pin you down on something later, after you've
| learned more about your and their case, e.g., they might
| disagree that TI is the assignee, or that the language is
| properly part of the patent b/c it was amended during
| prosecution or by a certificate of correction.
| freejazz wrote:
| They are denying the claims in the patent... that there is a
| need for blah blah blah.
|
| Source: I litigate patents
| tinus_hn wrote:
| A Pyrrhic victory; they are out $12k and the troll is free to go
| harass the next company.
| kiba wrote:
| Perhaps, but it did impose a cost on the troll which makes
| their venture less lucrative and hopefully more importantly, a
| psychological and emotional cost on the lawyers who's working
| to extort people.
| danhorner wrote:
| On the contrary, this patent could now be useless even if it
| doesn't get invalidated:
|
| It's expired for future use, and according to Sparkfun's
| response it can't be asserted against prior infringers because
| Huawei owned it and shipped devices without marking the patent
| on them.
| CalChris wrote:
| Pyrrhic victory? $12k is _cheap_. Generally, patent litigation
| is the sport of kings. That $12k means that Altair Logix gave
| up quickly, which in itself is useful information. $12k means
| that small cap companies should fight these trolls.
| inetknght wrote:
| > _$12k is cheap_
|
| Not to real people it isn't.
| creeble wrote:
| Also missing from the article is an explanation of why they
| spent $12k defending against an expired patent?
| freejazz wrote:
| The patent is expired now, but they can still sue for
| infringement that occurred during the life of the patent. In
| fact, this is how it goes for many patents given the
| lifecycle.
| awillen wrote:
| Because you don't just automatically win because the patent
| is expired. You have to hire a lawyer to research the patent
| and find out it's expired, then, at minimum, your lawyer has
| to go to court and prove that the patent is expired.
| charcircuit wrote:
| >You have to hire a lawyer to research the patent and find
| out it's expired
|
| You can do this yourself though
| creeble wrote:
| But patent terms are 20 years. It had clearly been more
| than 20 years.
|
| Why didn't the lawyer simply state this in their
| counterclaim? I don't actually see it _anywhere_ in the
| counterclaim.
| josaka wrote:
| You can, in some cases, sue for damages accrued up to six
| years in the past. You don't have to sue for those before
| the patent expires. You just stop accruing new damages
| when the patent expires. Past damages is what was
| allegedly at issue here. (Which is why the attorneys were
| talking about "marking," as it's a factor in whether you
| can get pre-suit damages for some types of claims in some
| cases.)
| [deleted]
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Because the allegations are for a period when the patent was
| not expired.
| alangibson wrote:
| Getting qualified people to dig up prior art and write
| responses ain't cheap.
| tyingq wrote:
| They did produce a fairly good pattern for the next company
| approached by Altair Logix. Including links to prior art,
| counterclaim documents, etc.
| freejazz wrote:
| That's all standard in a patent litigation and is by far the
| least expensive element of what you'd be paying an atty to
| do. That is to say, it's basically trivial to get an atty to
| say that you should contend invalidity via a counterclaim
| (especially in light of how SS101 is treated lately). What
| costs is getting an atty to actually find the invalidating
| prior art, draft up the counterclaims, etc.
| tyingq wrote:
| Sorry, I'm confused. If Altair Logix sues some other party,
| for the same patent, why is this linked list of
| invalidating prior art and counter claims not useful in
| reducing cost?
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| > Altair Logix
|
| Do you think those kind of company keep their name same for
| more than few years
| caf wrote:
| The patent number stays the same though.
| rvnx wrote:
| "We've sold 221 units over the entire time we carried the
| pcDuino. You want to sue us for $500 worth of made-up royalties
| to use your bogus patent? Sure. Come get it."
|
| I think it's not the 500 USD they are looking for, but rather
| to win a court case against someone who has not the ressources
| to defend himself, so they can reuse this case as an example in
| a more lucrative litigation.
| drewzero1 wrote:
| Free maybe, but at least not funded as a settlement would have.
| zh3 wrote:
| This is sort of a tragedy-of-the-commons situation. Very few
| people want to stand up and be counted (Sparkfun aside), yet it's
| the few who do who keep the bottom feeders[0] in check.
|
| [0] I've been advised by lawyers to just pay them off, as it's
| "cheaper than dealing with the bottom feeders". Some things
| matter more than money, and on the few occasions I've pushed it
| to the wire the chancers have slunk away. It's still expensive
| though - and maybe only small companies can do it, because for
| big companies it would be internally expensive/potentially
| ruinous/worries the C suite it might affect the share price.
| exabrial wrote:
| Go full scorched earth, every time. If possible, file complaints
| with their bar association. Work to get their licenses to
| practice law revoked. Form class action suits. Do whatever it
| takes, because they won't be the last.
| CptanPanic wrote:
| What's the deal with buying an expired patent? Doesn't expired
| mean the patent is not valid?
| alangibson wrote:
| I came here to ask the same question. It's he sitting for
| infringement that happened whale the patent was active? If so,
| don't you have a duty to sue in a "timely manner"?
| MobiusHorizons wrote:
| From the article, it sounds like the patent was expired when the
| current owner purchased it. How does a suit like that even make
| it to court? Would the owner be able to sue for violations from
| before it expired?
| danhorner wrote:
| One aspect of this defense was failure to mark: A previous owner
| of the patent produced processors covered by the patent but did
| not mark them as such.
|
| It turns out that systematically not marking your patent on your
| products invalidates claims for infringement unless it occurred
| after the owner notified future infringers of the violation.
|
| The striking thing about this for a patent troll is (if I
| understand this correctly) that it's easier to shake companies
| down if your patent has never been used to ship anything.
|
| That seems odd.
| turbohz wrote:
| > Every time a company settles it just funds the trolls to wreak
| more havoc. This is especially true for companies larger than
| $100 million in revenue. I'm looking at you Texas Instruments,
| VIA Technologies, Renesas, ASUS, Caterpillar, Nuvision
| International, and Netgear, just to name a few of the companies
| that have dealt with Jason Nguyen's Altair Logix. When you roll
| over and pay the trolls it hurts smaller companies terribly.
|
| I wonder if those companies consider this a "feature"?
| N00bN00b wrote:
| Ugly. So it's just a "protection fee" in a sense. Wouldn't
| surprise me if that's true.
|
| You just won't find it written down anywhere.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| The company I work for also had a patent troll, who got settled
| by much bigger companies in the trolls favor.
|
| They found a previous concept that would invalidate their
| expensive patent(s).
|
| They tried to settle with 0EUR. The lawyer of HQ didn't agree
| and changed it so they had to pay 1 CAD.
|
| Just because they could.
|
| Ps. It was accepted ofc.
| rcxdude wrote:
| A nominal fee is pretty common in contracts, it tends to be
| more binding than zero costs (because an important part of
| contract law is that both sides benefit from the contract).
| franga2000 wrote:
| Am I understanding correctly that you (your company) found
| prior art and chose to settle instead of presenting it in
| court and killing the patent? Any idea why? Isn't there some
| law that automatically awards you legal fees in the case of a
| frivolous lawsuit?
| AlbertCory wrote:
| You don't present it "to court" because that might be
| decided by a jury of unsophisticated people. You file an
| Inter Partes Review, which goes to the Patent Trial and
| Appeal Board, and is cheaper (note I didn't say "cheap").
|
| The U.S. doesn't have a "loser pays" model like other
| countries. You _can_ file for attorney 's fees, but the
| barriers are higher.
| freejazz wrote:
| It's called an invalidity counterclaim.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| ??? what are you disputing here? IPRs, or defending
| against an infringement suit, or what?
| freejazz wrote:
| Finding prior art to invalidate a patent doesn't make the
| plaintiff's lawsuit frivolous, so they probably wouldn't be
| awarded atty's fees. If the court didn't invalidate the
| patent, then you are now stuck in a serious litigation
| where the plaintiff has no reason to settle.
| stordoff wrote:
| $1 is probably a peppercorn payment[1]. A contract for 0EUR
| may well fail to be a valid contract due to a lack of
| consideration - both sides must offer something of value to
| the other for a contract to be binding.
|
| It's possible that the rest of the settlement would provide
| valid consideration, but a nominal payment removes any doubt
| from the situation.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppercorn_(legal)
| fsckboy wrote:
| a settlement is not a contract
| freejazz wrote:
| Settlement agreements are contracts. No one would agree
| (hmm, funny word, right) to a settlement if it wasn't
| legally binding.
| freejazz wrote:
| Peppercorn payments don't actually happen in the real
| world. Consideration is never an issue in actual contract
| litigation and in this case, settling something in exchange
| for any other benefit (no countersuit, etc) would suffice
| as consideration.
| jonas21 wrote:
| I can report that they do actually happen in the real
| world. I've signed two contracts in the past year that
| had consideration of $1 written into them (and actually
| made the $1 payment). Are they necessary? I have no idea,
| but real lawyers wrote the contracts and apparently
| thought it was good to have that in there.
| dunham wrote:
| There is also a Feynman anecdote about this (wherein he
| demanded the dollar that they neglected to pay him):
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7277192-anyway-smith-
| told-m...
| freejazz wrote:
| Sure, there are plenty of bad attorneys.
| [deleted]
| robocat wrote:
| If the settlement were 0EUR, it could have been paid with a
| zero euro bank note: https://www.banknoteworld.com/zero-euro/
| kbenson wrote:
| That was my first thought too. In this way, it serves a similar
| purpose to overly strict regulation, which is also something
| smaller companies have a much harder time dealing with than
| larger ones (and encouraging regulation of a specific area is a
| well known tactic of larger companies to raise the bar of entry
| to the market).
|
| That's not to say all regulation is bad, just that like most
| things that have beneficial ways to be used, it can be abused
| by some to negative effect also.
| exabrial wrote:
| I've ordered a ton of crap from SparkFun, and to help out as a
| thank you, I'll be ordering a huge batch of RPIs from them when
| they come back in stock.
| mherdeg wrote:
| Wow is that a PDF of a Microsoft Word document with inline
| comments written by the judge? I don't think I've ever seen a
| document in that style in PACER before (linked in the blog post
| at
| https://cdn.sparkfun.com/assets/home_page_posts/3/9/7/0/Alta...)
| .
|
| I think there's a typo in the blog post ("parent" should be
| "patent" below):
|
| > Do you ever wonder what parent trolls tell their children they
| do for a job?
|
| I read a story somewhere that claimed that "Captain Planet" had
| to be edited to feature cartoonishly evil villains, rather than
| the mundane day-to-day polluters, because they were worried that
| kids would ask uncomfortable career questions of their parents in
| sectors like disposable consumer goods, plastics, petrochemical,
| cigarettes, etc.
| yeetaccount wrote:
| If you can find a link to that Captain Planet story I'd like to
| read it. It sounds totally plausible.
| owlninja wrote:
| I think this is it
|
| https://grist.org/culture/captain-planet-planeteers-real-
| sto...
|
| >That family edutainment goal affected a lot of the show's
| writing. Pyle didn't want kids to see their family members as
| evil, ecologically speaking. "That's one of the reasons we
| made the bad guys and their plans so ridiculous," she
| explained, "We tried to point the finger at behaviors rather
| than industries. That way, no child would go home and say,
| 'Oh, daddy, you're in a blah blah business.' It would be
| horrible for some child to see their family member as a
| Captain Planet villain."
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I do not see why it would be terrible for a kid to see the
| ramifications of their future due to their current
| lifestyle of a 2k+ sq ft detached single family house with
| an SUV and pickup truck and flights to Disney world as a
| villain.
| maxlybbert wrote:
| Perhaps the child pressures the parent to change careers.
| Perhaps the parent pressures the child to "stop watching
| that stupid show" and Captain Planet's audience shrinks.
| I know which one I'd bet on.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Pretty much exactly this.
|
| My kids bring things up sometimes. We have a discussion
| about them, about our role in society, etc. But a good
| portion of the time the discussion becomes a lesson in
| critical thinking and not taking over-simplified
| idealistic pleas from randos on the Internet at face
| value.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| bad idea to put adult burdens of conscience and politic
| on children -- let them be children for a while
| franga2000 wrote:
| You're not putting that on the child, you're putting it
| on the parent. The children will put pressure on them
| without being hurt in the process. I've seen similar
| things with smoking - children are taught smoking is very
| dangerous and they start asking their parents why they
| smoke. "Are you going to get lung cancer too, dad? Please
| quit!" I know of several cases where the parents quit
| smoking in part because of their children. The children
| felt really proud of themselves, which is great.
| sodality2 wrote:
| > "Are you going to get lung cancer too, dad? Please
| quit!"
|
| This would definitely have a negative impact on a child
| growing up- feeling like I had to worry about my parents'
| health when I was ~12 definitely did.
| [deleted]
| mikepurvis wrote:
| I mean, the child is still the agent of change in that
| scenario-- and it's perfectly possible for it to go the
| other way too, where no change occurs and the parent and
| child end up resenting each other over it.
|
| I don't know if I'm necessarily making a value judgment
| either way here, but I don't think "get to them through
| their young kids" should be considered a general-purpose
| strategy for effecting societal change... and fear of
| this kind of thing is exactly what breeds mistrust in
| public education, parents pulling their kids out of sex
| ed, etc etc.
| caf wrote:
| It's true, but the opposite strategy - sugarcoat the
| truth to avoid raising uncomfortable questions about the
| status quo - _also_ breeds mistrust in education and
| institutions. All we can really try to do is present our
| best view of the truth, with all the uncertainties around
| that. Does smoking cause lung cancer? That certainly
| appears to be where the weight of evidence sits, and it
| would be a lie of omission to avoid saying so. Should you
| quit smoking? That 's up to you.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| That's true. The alternative is a bland world of
| platitudes where no one ever says anything and all the
| conflicts are fully made up (as in the case of over-the-
| top villains for a cartoon purportedly about being good
| stewards of the environment).
| [deleted]
| Igelau wrote:
| Good goooood... and then we have left them most
| vulnerable and depressed and upset the foundation of the
| family, we will cut to commercials rife with aspirational
| advertising!
|
| Yes, my student! Feel the power of the dark side!
| buildbot wrote:
| This document is actually way more interesting with the
| comments, kind of an inside look into the legal process
| yupyup54133 wrote:
| This document is like HN in general. TLDR; the main doc and
| just read the comments. ;-)
| mig39 wrote:
| Nah, I think they genuinely mean "trolls" who happen to be
| parents and have to explain to their kids what they do for a
| living.
| breakyerself wrote:
| I think parent troll is a play on words. Patent trolls with
| children are parent trolls.
| Igelau wrote:
| Parent troll wisdom: No matter what he says, eat the littlest
| billy goat first. Don't give up the choke point at the bridge.
| Don't let the enemy onto the hillside behind you.
|
| I always wondered what the moral of that story was supposed to
| be.
| kbenson wrote:
| Fairy tales and folktales don't necessarily have a moral,
| which is a distinction from a fable or parable.
|
| Sometimes it was just the ancient version of Squid Game, and
| people just wanted to hear or tell something entertaining.
| kennywinker wrote:
| I'm only two episode into squid game, but it's an add
| choice for an example of "just entertainment" since it is
| clearly a commentary on late stage capitalism.
| kbenson wrote:
| It's... interesting, in the end. They make some bold
| choices (which I rather liked, since you don't see
| choices of that type in American popular media as much),
| but even as commentary, I'm not sure there's a moral or
| lesson to come out of it rather than to just provoke
| thought and to entertain.
|
| Put another way, it says a lot of things, and outlines a
| lot of problems, but I'm not sure it puts any solutions
| forth. That's probably a good thing IMO, as any solution
| presented in a program like that invariably seems trite
| to me, as it necessarily oversimplifies the problem so
| the solution proposed can work.
| Igelau wrote:
| It might seem like it's going that way at first. I
| wouldn't say it's a commentary on late-stage capitalism
| as much as that's just part of the setting.
| mherdeg wrote:
| I never quite understood why they didn't just send the big
| goat first.
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| Because you don't get to become the big Billy goat by
| taking all the upfront risk. I've seen many a buck follow
| this strategy. When a group of 2 or 3 bucks enter a
| clearing, you'll almost always see the biggest oldest one
| go last.
| stickfigure wrote:
| Maybe not a strategy, just survivorship bias?
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| Maybe I don't understand, but I don't think this
| suggestion is quite coherent.
|
| If the bucks following this stategy are the ones that
| survived, how is this survivorhsip bias rather than a
| winning strategy?
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| I imagine it's a couple things, these old stories pack in a
| lot of useful information.
|
| Bridges are dangerous if you're a little kid, you may want to
| get your older siblings to back you up.
|
| Disdaining small victories leaves you unprepared for the big
| ones.
|
| There's always someone bigger.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| The moral is, you can escape from bullies by offering up your
| classmates as more attractive targets.
|
| /s
|
| Or maybe it's that it doesn't pay to be the bully, because
| eventually you try to bully someone bigger than you.
| dylan604 wrote:
| >worried that kids would ask uncomfortable career questions of
| their parents
|
| such a missed opportunity. daddy, why are you trying to kill
| the planet?
| phoehne wrote:
| Because mommy's coke is very, very expensive. Now go play
| with your x-box.
| MisterTea wrote:
| Mommy usually buys coke with her vagina. Or at least that's
| what my ex-drug dealing friend told me who "sold" a lot of
| coke to rich bored house wives in NYC.
| closeparen wrote:
| As a child I learned that technological progress takes the form
| of _inventions_ and comes from intellectual heroes called
| _inventors_. Manufacture, distribution, marketing, business,
| etc. were all just details that would inevitably get worked out
| by one or another of the sharks in that grubby game. And the
| sharks would constantly be trying to screw the inventor out of
| his due. As a child I would have looked at someone who enforces
| patents for a living as a kind of hero.
|
| Once I reached the tech industry it was a total 180, ideas are
| worthless, the heroes are the engineers who can scale them and
| the founders who can make businesses out of them. But patent
| law didn't get the memo, it's still based on my elementary-
| school worldview.
| freejazz wrote:
| Inventors regularly sign over their inventions to the
| businesses that they work for, such that the businessmen are
| able to make business models out of them that the engineers
| will scale. To be honest, I don't think you know much of how
| the patent system works to substantiate your comment.
| wiseleo wrote:
| Comment A2 is pure gold
|
| "Commented [A2]: Whoever wrote this sentence might be the same
| person who writes patents. It would be helpful in the future to
| write and speak in plain English. You are dealing with an
| ordinary court, not a patent examiner.
| lelandbatey wrote:
| I absolutely _love_ chances to read or listen in on any
| instance where a judge provides feedback in the US legal
| system. For reasons I do not understand, there seems to be a
| strong culture among judges of constantly dishing out
| statements which somehow always feel like "sick burns". The
| few encounters with IRL judges I've had also had this
| quality, where the judge would be totally willing to frame
| people really harshly in their questions, or just outright
| denounce someone. If anyone has any insight into this (I bet
| there are some good books about "legal culture and judge
| culture" that'd be real interesting) please do chime in!
| oasisbob wrote:
| You might enjoy this series of interviews with Supreme
| Court justices on writing style in _The Scribes Journal of
| Legal Writing_ vol 13:
|
| https://legaltimes.typepad.com/files/garner-
| transcripts-1.pd...
|
| The interviews go beyond writing style into broader
| rhetoric, as well as dislikes and pet-peeves.
| fhrow4484 wrote:
| > Lesson #3) Anyone can sign up for Public Access to Court
| Electronic Records (PACER) to search and retrieve your own legal
| documents [...] getting them yourself at $0.10 a page.
|
| It sounds cheap, but one bad search and you may be fetching 100s
| of pages (IIRC, the number of pages returned by your search is
| what counts - https://pacer.uscourts.gov/pacer-pricing-how-fees-
| work).
|
| If you do so, you can also use RECAP: https://free.law/recap.
| It's like the internet archive for PACER documents.
|
| It's a browser extension that helps create a crowdsourced archive
| of the PACER content. You can then search that archive (this time
| for free) in https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/
|
| For stuff not on RECAP, then PACER can be used, and fee is waived
| if less than $30 that quarter according to
| https://free.law/pacer-facts
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Hear, hear on RECAP.
|
| It is surprisingly complete. See [1] for the Theranos trial.
|
| I think most of the lawyers at Big Law must have the Chrome
| extension. A high percentage of the docs you would want are on
| there.
|
| [1] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/7185174/united-
| states-v...
| freejazz wrote:
| It's not the biglaw attorneys, its the reporters
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| FYI RECAP means you're technically in violation of PACER's
| terms of use which prohibit redistribution or publishing.
|
| Violating terms laid forth by the federal court system ends
| (for wealthy internet tech celebrities) in the EFF picking up
| your legal tab and the FBI saying "okay FINE, just don't do
| that again."
|
| For you and me, it ends in tens of thousands in legal costs and
| at best probation terms that likely substantially interfere
| with your ability to make a living.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| > In this case, Jason, smelling potential money, purchased an
| expired patent '434 from Huawei and then formed a shell company
| to start suing people.
|
| What's going on with suing people under an expired patent?
|
| Is there actually some legal ground here -- like can you sue them
| for their historical violation before it expired or something?
| slac wrote:
| I find it super bizarre that Huawei would sell expired patents.
| Is it really worth it?
| AlbertCory wrote:
| "expired" doesn't mean you can't sue for infringement. For six
| years (someone check me on this), you can sue for infringements
| that happened while the patent _was_ unexpired.
| detaro wrote:
| If I understand correctly not applicable here (patent expired
| after max duration of 20 years), but one facet of this is that
| in some cases you can buy a patent that is expired because the
| owner decided it wasn't worth to continue pay the extension
| fees and un-expire it by paying the fees retroactively.
| aerosmile wrote:
| For every instance that results in a win against a patent troll,
| there are many more instances where people just pay - you just
| don't hear about them. More recently the portfolio of companies I
| am a part of has seen an uptick in demands, and I have to assume
| that this is driven by a feedback loop that's producing good
| outcomes for trolls.
| hackeraccount wrote:
| I'm reminded of how Newegg and Cloudflare have dealt with this
| kind of thing.
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/11/the-hunted-becomes-the-hun...
|
| At one time at least they seemed to view it as a fight to the
| death. When offered a settlement they'd just keep going.
| beefield wrote:
| Unfortunately, however, looks like the nice people[1] at
| Blackbird still keep on working their stuff, so it was not a
| fight to the death.
|
| https://www.blackbird-tech.com/blackbird-technologies-settle...
|
| [1]that was sarcasm.
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| They patented a switch?? How can this patent pass the basic
| check?
| anitil wrote:
| Drawing a line in the sand and threatening mutual destruction
| is a good way to make the trolls move one to an easier target.
| dctoedt wrote:
| And Blue Jeans Cable's 2008 response to a Monster Cable demand
| letter: The CEO of BlueJeans was an ex-litigator; excerpt:
|
| <quote>
|
| After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania Law School
| in 1985, I spent nineteen years in litigation practice, with a
| focus upon federal litigation involving large damages and
| complex issues. My first seven years were spent primarily on
| the defense side, where I developed an intense frustration with
| insurance carriers who would settle meritless claims for
| nuisance value when the better long-term view would have been
| to fight against vexatious litigation as a matter of principle.
| In plaintiffs' practice, likewise, I was always a strong
| advocate of standing upon principle and taking cases all the
| way to judgment, even when substantial offers of settlement
| were on the table.
|
| I am "uncompromising" in the most literal sense of the word. If
| Monster Cable proceeds with litigation against me I will pursue
| the same merits-driven approach; I do not compromise with
| bullies and I would rather spend fifty thousand dollars on
| defense than give you a dollar of unmerited settlement funds.
|
| As for signing a licensing agreement for intellectual property
| which I have not infringed: that will not happen, under any
| circumstances, whether it makes economic sense or not.
|
| I say this because my observation has been that Monster Cable
| typically operates in a hit-and-run fashion. Your client
| threatens litigation, expecting the victim to panic and plead
| for mercy; and what follows is a quickie negotiation session
| that ends with payment and a licensing agreement. Your client
| then uses this collection of licensing agreements to convince
| others under similar threat to accede to its demands.
|
| Let me be clear about this: there are only two ways for you to
| get anything out of me. You will either need to (1) convince me
| that I have infringed, or (2) obtain a final judgment to that
| effect from a court of competent jurisdiction.
|
| It may be that my inability to see the pragmatic value of
| settling frivolous claims is a deep character flaw, and I am
| sure a few of the insurance carriers for whom I have done work
| have seen it that way; but it is how I have done business for
| the last quarter-century and you are not going to change my
| mind.
|
| If you sue me, the case will go to judgment, and I will hold
| the court's attention upon the merits of your claims--or, to
| speak more precisely, the absence of merit from your claims--
| from start to finish.
|
| Not only am I unintimidated by litigation; I sometimes rather
| miss it.
|
| </quote>
|
| (Extra paragraphing added.)
|
| https://www.bluejeanscable.com/legal/mcp/response041408.pdf
| supermatt wrote:
| Any way to recover the legal fees for something like this?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| henvic wrote:
| If you're interest in this subject, I recommend Austin Meyer's
| documentary The Patent Scam (https://www.thepatentscam.com/).
|
| * Austin Meyer is the creator of X-Plane / Laminar Research.
| can16358p wrote:
| The only problem I see about this post is that asking big
| companies to fight against trolls otherwise it hurts small
| companies.
|
| While no one would legally admit that and putting aside morals,
| isn't it what big companies want anyway?
| matsemann wrote:
| In the linked first post, they show a letter they received about
| this patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9729658
|
| Can't even fathom what the patent is saying. Sounds like they
| have tried patenting the web.
| tschesnok wrote:
| It would be great if VCs created funds / departments to fight
| trolls attacking their portfolio. I understand that there are
| many issues with this model. But it might just work. Especially
| for accelerators like YC. I think word would get around quickly
| to "not touch YC companies" and the expense would go to zero. It
| would also be easy for YC to decide what is a troll and what is
| legit.
| eschaton wrote:
| The problem is that even if VCs hate patent trolls when
| directly affected by them, they don't actually hate patents,
| and in fact try to make their portfolio companies patent
| everything under the sun.
| h2odragon wrote:
| Thank you, Sparkfun, for spending the time and resources to
| defend the principles of civil society.
|
| Can Sparkfun now counter-sue for costs and maybe even Barratry?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barratry_(common_law)
| imglorp wrote:
| Thank you Sparkfun.
|
| I'll be ordering some circuity toys to let them know!
| rbanffy wrote:
| > Use your settlements budgets to fight because the rest of us
| don't have settlement budgets.
|
| That's one of the reasons why some companies will settle instead
| of litigate - it's a cheap way to kill your competition before it
| threatens you while, at the same time, not raising any eyebrows
| about anti-competitive practices.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Hooray for him.
|
| Patent trolls have a business model, which he's disrupted:
|
| 1) buy a patent, the broader and better-tested the better
|
| 2) start threatening the easy marks; the ones who roll over and
| write you a check right away. Their trick is to
| ask for a settlement small enough to say "hey, it'll cost you
| more than that for attorney's fees!"
|
| 3) use that money to threaten the harder targets: the ones who
| will fight back. Those people get asked for much larger sums.
|
| 4) _maybe_ actually go to trial with a very big target, one that
| 'll get dinged for a 9-figure judgment if the troll wins. In the
| Eastern District of Texas, juries tend to do that.
|
| Researching the validity of a patent does not require $400/hour
| attorneys. Anyone with a basic knowledge of patent law _and_
| computer science can do it. (And no, I 'm not advertising for
| myself. I'm retired.) Do you think those expensive attorneys do
| it themselves? It is to laugh -- they assign it to a junior who
| knows technology.
| Jake232 wrote:
| First year associates at the law firm I use charge over
| $500/hr. Senior lawyers/partner cost well over $1,200/hour in
| 2021 at many of the largest / most successful firms now.
| srcmap wrote:
| Anti-Patent troll model: Talk to EFF, start a go-fund-me
| campaigns, wild up the public opinions,
| shmerl wrote:
| More like they have shakedown and protection racket model they
| call "business". Just highlights how messed up the legal system
| is, if someone has to do so much work to disrupt racketeers.
| freejazz wrote:
| Junior attys at BigLaw firms are billed at the $400/hr rate...
| silexia wrote:
| A patent troll brought a lawsuit against my company,
| CoalitionTechnologies.com, in the Eastern District Court of
| Texas. My attorney and I were able to get them to voluntarily
| dismiss the lawsuit shortly afterwards. I won't be naming the
| patent troll here as they voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit.
|
| Coalition has a policy of never settling frivolous lawsuits and
| fighting all the way to the bloody end. We recently won a
| judgement with attorneys fees in another lawsuit.
|
| When I first received the notice that I was being sued, I freaked
| out a little bit. I didn't sleep well for the next couple of
| nights, but began working on this right away. I contacted a
| couple of dozen Texas patent attorneys, most of whom quoted
| outrageous prices ranging from $200 to $600 per hour and some
| asking for a $25k retainer upfront! I soon realized that all of
| these Texas patent attorneys are in the same game with the patent
| trolls... these attorneys make money the longer the legal process
| gets drawn out. I was contacted by Amit Agarwal (310-351-6596 -
| based in LA but he can operate anywhere) and at first I was
| turned off by his aggressive approach. However, I spoke with my
| other attorney and he said it won't hurt to give him a shot. I
| signed up with Amit and it was the best decision I could have
| made. Amit brought a very aggressive approach and quickly got the
| patent troll to back down and dismiss the lawsuit.
|
| The lawsuit was mostly dismissed after Amit really went after the
| troll and their attorneys with some great research and motions he
| spent Christmas writing.
| ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote:
| I don't know if your work in SEO has affected your speech but
| this sounds a 100% like an ad that people write about
| themselves online to promote their services. It follows all the
| patterns of false testimonials you'd usually hear in
| infomercials.
|
| Sorry if it's genuine, I also sometimes like to recommend
| people and companies I've had good experiences with.
| dylan604 wrote:
| It's not like they were hocking their company. They
| specifically gave out information on someone they hired
| outside of the company. Yes, there a little self-promotion
| listing URL and what not, but it was much more about the
| attorney they hired. meh
| ziddoap wrote:
| It's not necessarily just the content, but the style and
| delivery of that content.
|
| Which in this case, certainly reads like a boilerplate
| advertisement you read on a Top 10 How To Advertise
| listicle. Good faith advice or not.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I guess you'd rather see something like:
|
| Yo dawg!!! You'll never guess what happened to me when
| those bizsnitch little lawyers tried to sue me for some
| whack azz shiznit yo! Yo! You gotta call my bro the
| bizsnitch laywer asskickin mofo! Just smash them digits
| 555-212-0420 and he'll go to work for you yo!
|
| Or maybe somewhere in between?
| ghostbrainalpha wrote:
| This is hilarious if it's satire. Pretty sad if its a genuine
| recommendation.
|
| But you are right, its too hard to tell.
| philote wrote:
| I agree it sounds like an ad. A quick search found this
| however: https://joelx.com/how-to-beat-a-patent-troll-in-
| east-texas/1... which makes me think it's legit. Weird it's
| almost verbatim from the blog post, but hey why bother
| spending time on a new write-up I guess.
| smusamashah wrote:
| Another comment of author is also their another blog post.
| silexia wrote:
| My apologies for my writing style, I guess my years in SEO
| have had a strong effect!
|
| I'm extremely grateful for the work Amit did for me, he did
| not compensate me or even request that I post this for him.
|
| As the original blog post said, patent trolls are predators
| that rely on the fact that it costs companies over a
| million dollars to defend a case even if they win so that
| they can extort tens of thousands of dollars without much
| work.
|
| We need to abolish the patent system altogether, as
| everyone on here knows ideas are worthless and execution is
| everything. The best way to protect real innovators is to
| prevent artificial monopolies rising up preventing them
| from competing in the market.
| abhinav22 wrote:
| Well unless people are selling their hacker news accounts,
| it's seems genuine and I just think the poster was very
| appreciative and hence posting. Sometimes we can all be too
| cynical
| [deleted]
| jimmyed wrote:
| > with some great research and motions he spent Christmas
| writing.
|
| It helps that Amit doesn't celebrate Christmas and needs
| holidays.
| rvnx wrote:
| Don't ever mention Christmas in a professional setting.
|
| One day I got invited for interview at a famous SV company
| who has offices in Europe, in a snowy and catholic country.
|
| It was the end of the year, so on the way out, with a good
| mood I said "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year" to the
| people I just met.
|
| Later on, the recruiter explained to me that the team felt
| offended that I used the word "Christmas" (but still got an
| offer).
| blinding-streak wrote:
| Is it surprising to you that not everyone celebrates
| Christmas?
| alangibson wrote:
| What's surprising is that you can't expect people to be
| charitable in their interpretations and take things in
| the spirit it is meant. I make Marx look like a Bible
| beater, but I wont take offense at someone wishing me
| Merry Christmas. Or Eid, Diwali, Purim, or anything else
| for that matter.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Why is it that those that don't get so offended when
| someone wishes them good tidings from their practices?
| azinman2 wrote:
| Seems a bit extreme to be literally offended, and I'm not
| even Christian.
| beervirus wrote:
| > outrageous prices ranging from $200 to $600 per hour and some
| asking for a $25k retainer upfront!
|
| I hate to tell you this, but that's not at all outrageous. And
| you get what you pay for.
| abhinav22 wrote:
| For a small business, heck for most of us, that's too much
| schleck8 wrote:
| I'm not in law so I don't know how the price is calculated,
| but how can this be fair when the highest neurosurgeon wage
| is 192 usd per hour on ziprecruiter?
| beervirus wrote:
| Maybe the decent neurosurgeons aren't on ziprecruiter, I
| dunno. But $200/hour is absolutely nothing for a lawyer.
| Even a smallish/midsize firm is going to be billing out
| first-year associates higher than that. $600/hour is pretty
| ordinary.
|
| And just to be clear, this is what the law firm charges for
| a lawyer's time. It's not the take home pay for the lawyer.
| schleck8 wrote:
| > And just to be clear, this is what the law firm charges
| for a lawyer's time. It's not the take home pay for the
| lawyer
|
| Ah, that makes more sense. I know someone who worked in
| finance. Her employer charged clients 500 euros per hour
| for her work and she saw around a fifth of that
| silexia wrote:
| Most surgeons are self employed. Employees usually make
| less than business owners. I know personally several
| surgeons earning around $5 million per year.
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