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Clicker Heroes maker compares new lawsuit from “patent troll” to extortion

arstechnica.com

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Re: Clicker Heroes maker compares new lawsuit from “patent troll” to extortion

#21

Post by kss238 »

morinted wrote: post #15
giancarlostoro wrote: post #11

We need to really make it painful to be a patent troll. Allow companies to band together and accuse a company for being a patent troll (list of patents as evidence and evidence of the ideas having existed prior to patent filings), if proven then their patents should be disbanded and the company fined. At the very least allow companies to band together to have invalid obscure patents from unknown companies that DO NOT…

The first thing that came to mind was a new brand of patent troll companies that seek to invalidate a smaller company's patent by "proving" it invalid.

What does the "new brand of patent troll companies" gain from this? Patent trolls exist today because of the monetary gain, why would those exist for no monetary gain?

Re: Clicker Heroes maker compares new lawsuit from “patent troll” to extortion

#22

Post by [deleted] »

kss238 wrote: post #21
morinted wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first thing that came to mind was a new brand of patent troll companies that seek to invalidate a smaller company's patent by "proving" it invalid.

What does the "new brand of patent troll companies" gain from this? Patent trolls exist today because of the monetary gain, why would those exist for no monetary gain?

[deleted]

Re: Clicker Heroes maker compares new lawsuit from “patent troll” to extortion

#23

Post by codingdave »

omginternets wrote: post #5
nukeop wrote: post #4

What is the risk of just ignoring this letter altogether? Surely it would not hold in any court of law due to overwhelming number of examples of prior art, widespread use, and vague wording of the patent?

The issue is that this is asymmetric warfare. It's "cheap" for the patent troll to engage in countless procedures, each of which costs you the case if you fail, whereas it costs the defendant tens of thousands of dollars each time.

It isn't countless procedures, there are standard rules of civil procedure, which are not countless. And they are balanced - if you counter sue for legal costs, you get to play the same game, and you also have actions you can take under the rules of civil procedures to which the trolls must also respond or lose the case.

Also, there is no lawsuit here. This is a letter. The harm of ignoring a letter is simply a matter of risk management. But in short, no suit, no foul.

I have literally said this a dozen times on HN. Learn the law enough to not get bullied.

Re: Clicker Heroes maker compares new lawsuit from “patent troll” to extortion

#26

Post by Spoom »

berdon wrote: post #25

If a patent has been found invalid - can previous lawsuits that awarded damages to the patent troll be invalidated? This might make it far more dangerous for a troll to go to court.

Wouldn't that make it dangerous to own and enforce patents in the first place?

Re: Clicker Heroes maker compares new lawsuit from “patent troll” to extortion

#27

Post by berdon »

Spoom wrote: post #26
berdon wrote: post #25

If a patent has been found invalid - can previous lawsuits that awarded damages to the patent troll be invalidated? This might make it far more dangerous for a troll to go to court.

Wouldn't that make it dangerous to own and enforce patents in the first place?

Yes, if they were on the edge of validity.

Re: Clicker Heroes maker compares new lawsuit from “patent troll” to extortion

#28

Post by arpit »

Stories like this get a lot of people here (including myself) really angry with a lot of people even asking for places to donate to support fighting these trolls.

In today's world of decentralized currencies and programmable wallets can there be a fund that people like us can donate to and that programmatically gets unlocked when the majority of the community agrees that a case is one of patent trolling.

Could there be a "proof of troll" ?

Re: Clicker Heroes maker compares new lawsuit from “patent troll” to extortion

#29

Post by inetknght »

kss238 wrote: post #21
morinted wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first thing that came to mind was a new brand of patent troll companies that seek to invalidate a smaller company's patent by "proving" it invalid.

What does the "new brand of patent troll companies" gain from this? Patent trolls exist today because of the monetary gain, why would those exist for no monetary gain?

You're telling me that you can't envision a situation where Big Company A holds patents worth billions, and Big Company B wouldn't pay money to see those patents invalidated?

You're telling me that you can't envision a situation where Big Company B could spend millions (instead of billions) in an attempt to bring down such patents and, even if it loses, consider it just a risky bet at best?

Re: Clicker Heroes maker compares new lawsuit from “patent troll” to extortion

#30

Post by Buttons840 »

snarf21 wrote: post #17
giancarlostoro wrote: post #11

We need to really make it painful to be a patent troll. Allow companies to band together and accuse a company for being a patent troll (list of patents as evidence and evidence of the ideas having existed prior to patent filings), if proven then their patents should be disbanded and the company fined. At the very least allow companies to band together to have invalid obscure patents from unknown companies that DO NOT…

We really need to fund USPTO better so some of these never get passed in the first place. I also think limiting the lifetime of "tech" patents removes most of this. Troll attacks must come very very quickly instead of just buying them up when start-ups go out of business for pennies so they can charge to "license" their pile of crap.

I wish patents had to argue how much work it would take a peer in the industry replicate their work.

A pharmaceutical company could argue that another company would have to spend millions on research just like they did. A tech company would argue that a talented 15 year old would need at least a day to duplicate their work. Give one a 20 year patent and the other a 1 year patent.

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