Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game

My rule of thumb is simple: I look at a service and ask myself, is what I see a good, efficient way to deliver the value the service says it delivers? If the answer is no, I know that they don't give a shit about delivering value, they're only there to extract it.

In the concrete example of journalism: inverted pyramid, TL;DR of the facts at the top, no useless prose - those are signs of trying to deliver value. Prose, multi-page articles, ads, auto-playing videos (be it ads or "content") - those are signs they don't give a shit about you.

And yes, some may say that companies seek balance between profitability and value. Sure, maybe companies think they do that. But the choices they make matter. If they're making money literally on wasting my time, the most precious resource any human being has, then I don't want to have anything to do with them.

Which is why I don't read the news. The state of the journalism is so bad here, that casual browsing of comment sections of Reddit and HN is a more efficient way to stay up-to-date on the world events than actually reading the articles.

These lawyers are doing great work by creating a market that allows innovators to profit from their work even if they don't have the capital to commercialize their innovations themselves.

The incumbents can cry about this but even if they have never sued anyone for infringement their valuations are still based on their portfolios and they still use the threat to suppress competition and when they are over a barrel for cash they will monetize those patents either themselves or by selling to another "troll."

Individual software engineers who invent new technologies deserve to get compensated the same as anyone else for their inventions.

For example after 5 years the renewal fees could relate to gross revenue from any device including that patent, or actual licensing fees. I like the former as it seems harder to work around [though you'll get components sold as products to companies residing in the same factory, I guess] and means that patents that don't contribute considerably to revenue will be dropped. This means people can still profit from useful inventions.

You could also underpin renewal fees with an exponentially growing base cost.

Because, under the proposal, those license fees can be recovered at any time. Forever. You will never be able to go uninsured for any patent you ever granted. As your life wears on, regardless of whether you need the insurance or not, your net value is wound down.

Again, this means that only large companies will be willing to take the chance, because they can spread that risk across a portfolio and afford to defend it. A sole inventor cannot. They might obtain a patent, but under this scheme, they won't license it -- they'll just sell it. And it's just going to be to a large company, a patent broker or a patent troll.

> If you shake people down with a government enforced monopoly that turns out to never have legitimately existed, keeping that money is immoral.

I agree, and courts may be prepared to grant remedies in some cases.

But my point is that it is also problematic to tilt the field still further against sole inventors. That increases the proportion of giant companies and patent trolls, which makes the net situation worse, not better.

Aggressive Woman: You need to watch your step, my husband is a criminal lawyer

Woman she was trying to intimidate: (deadpans) Aren't they all ?