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Ask HN: I was hit with a patent troll lawsuit, how do I deal with it?

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Re: Ask HN: I was hit with a patent troll lawsuit, how do I deal with it?

#61

Post by kkielhofner »

dmabram wrote: post #33

I've been through similar situations. The "find a lawyer" comments are less than helpful, since you probably don't know where to begin and most lawyers will happily take your money without necessarily having an expedient path to resolution for a small one-person company. So here's what you do: Write to each of your competitors, explain the situation and ask for a referral to their lawyers. You'd be surprised how many…

I generally appreciate the altruism of this advice but there's a huge risk in that the competitors likely won't set aside the spirit of competition, whatever they've spent/done to deal with this, etc to help out a competitor.

I, personally, would not risk this approach.

Re: Ask HN: I was hit with a patent troll lawsuit, how do I deal with it?

#62

Post by neilk »

orzig wrote: post #24

Bad idea for the sake of discussion: Why not represent yourself, make the whole process as public as possible (marketing to offset the cost of time), and do everything you can to asymmetrically use their lawyer's time? Even if you end up settling, they might come to the table a little more eager to get it over with

Because this is a distraction from your business, and distracting you IS their business. Every hour spent on legal affairs, playing on their turf, weakens you and strengthens them.

Patent trolls have no reputation to ruin, so you can’t shame them by being very public.

Unless this is a particularly outrageous case or you are a very well-known person I doubt you can get much marketing benefit from a public fight.

Re: Ask HN: I was hit with a patent troll lawsuit, how do I deal with it?

#63

Post by [deleted] »

dmabram wrote: post #33

I've been through similar situations. The "find a lawyer" comments are less than helpful, since you probably don't know where to begin and most lawyers will happily take your money without necessarily having an expedient path to resolution for a small one-person company. So here's what you do: Write to each of your competitors, explain the situation and ask for a referral to their lawyers. You'd be surprised how many…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: I was hit with a patent troll lawsuit, how do I deal with it?

#64

Post by duxup »

dmabram wrote: post #33

I've been through similar situations. The "find a lawyer" comments are less than helpful, since you probably don't know where to begin and most lawyers will happily take your money without necessarily having an expedient path to resolution for a small one-person company. So here's what you do: Write to each of your competitors, explain the situation and ask for a referral to their lawyers. You'd be surprised how many…

I understand how 'find a lawyer' is less than helpful but isn't your advice just 'find a lawyer ... that your competitors suggest'. Competitors who by default do not have your best interests in mind.

Is there any real difference / likelihood of a good outcome there?

Ultimately I see little difference in the potential of "most lawyers will happily take your money without necessarily having an expedient path to resolution for a small one-person company".

Re: Ask HN: I was hit with a patent troll lawsuit, how do I deal with it?

#66

Post by ufmace »

akersten wrote: post #11
nceqs3 wrote: post #7

You could always settle. How much are they asking for? Could you share the patent # they are trying to use?

By settling, they would be enabling the cycle of abuse. This is as good as "you could always pay the bitcoin ransom." OP needs to contact the EFF and knock this down in court - it's the only way to push back against insane software patents.

This is bad advice. OP is trying to start/run a business, not fix the world or satisfy somebody's justice quest. It's nice to do if you can, but your first responsibility is to yourself.

Re: Ask HN: I was hit with a patent troll lawsuit, how do I deal with it?

#67

Post by rpaddock »

I'm posting this mostly because it was the next thing that came up in my feed, after seeing your Troll dilemma. The editorial comment may be relevant to your case.

Mouser, a large distributor in the Electronic industry is being sued by a Troll.

I hope that Mouser chooses to no longer carry the claimed infringing part.

How is there any logic to the troll suing the very company getting their product out to the world?

https://www.eenewseurope.com/news/micron-mouser-sued-germany...

Re: Ask HN: I was hit with a patent troll lawsuit, how do I deal with it?

#69

Post by saxonww »

whimsicalism wrote: post #49
wyager wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> vindication is very expensive While true, this is unfortunate, because it means that patent trolls continue to get away with this behavior. I think society today is insufficiently aggressive and vengeful. The social utility of vengefulness is precisely that it allows for n-tit-for-tat strategies to punish social defectors like patent trolls.

> I think society today is insufficiently aggressive and vengeful. Sure, the society with one of the largest per capita prison populations in the world is insufficiently vengeful.

When you're directing vengeance at the wrong problems, then yes.

Re: Ask HN: I was hit with a patent troll lawsuit, how do I deal with it?

#70

Post by thatguy0900 »

kkielhofner wrote: post #61
dmabram wrote: post #33

I've been through similar situations. The "find a lawyer" comments are less than helpful, since you probably don't know where to begin and most lawyers will happily take your money without necessarily having an expedient path to resolution for a small one-person company. So here's what you do: Write to each of your competitors, explain the situation and ask for a referral to their lawyers. You'd be surprised how many…

I generally appreciate the altruism of this advice but there's a huge risk in that the competitors likely won't set aside the spirit of competition, whatever they've spent/done to deal with this, etc to help out a competitor. I, personally, would not risk this approach.

What's the risk here? That they would purposefully send you to a malicious lawyer? That seems kind of unlikely. Especially if the patent troll has also sued them
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