Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit

Post by hamandcheese » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 4:09 AM UTC

linuxhansl wrote: post #45

In every western country - except the US and England - the loser pays for the cost of the trial (all parties' lawyer fees + the court). Just this reduces frivolous lawsuits. If you have a good case, sure, go ahead. If your case is weak, you run a real risk paying not only for your lawyers but the other side as well. (Note that there are disadvantages to loser-pays as well. Image you legitimately want to sue corporati…

Post by pclmulqdq » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 4:18 AM UTC

KerrAvon wrote: post #127

pclmulqdq wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not every company that has no revenue other than through lawsuits got there by choice. Someone can copy your invention and sell it for less (or give it out for free), and you will be screwed. There are lots of calls for exponentially escalating fees for patents over their life, and I think that is a much better idea than "use it or lose it."

Fees for what? I’m not convinced there’s any value in the patent system in the 21st century. Maybe it should be abolished. Who is it now helping? Certainly not the individual inventors it was meant to encourage. Software patents should absolutely be prohibited altogether. They help no one; they’re not useful for small inventors and they’re just a pointless tax paid to patent trolls on innovation for everyone else. (I…

Post by pronoiac » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 4:22 AM UTC

ummonk wrote: post #90

There needs to be an anti-patent-troll membership organization. You pay a fee relative to some metric and the organization acts as insurance against parent trolls by fully defending any patent lawsuits that are obviously unjustified. And to keep costs low, membership in this organization would be public to deter patent trolls from even trying to sue a member in the first place.

Post by pclmulqdq » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 4:23 AM UTC

gregsadetsky wrote: post #89

pclmulqdq wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The disclosures in the patent aren't what they are suing you over. Read the claims. Patents like this often have a lot of stuff shoved into the disclosure so that they can keep the patent application alive to write more patents based on the original disclosure. The claims appear to be written to read on devices like yours: My knowledge of your system is a bit dated, but I thought you had a device that you plugged int…

The DARPA Grand Challenge ran in 2004 and 2005 (i.e. before 2007) and the cars there definitely all had emergency shut off mechanisms. Maybe one of the competitors used an existing (i.e. not custom made) car part for this? ——— Found this from 2004: “A DARPA-provided electronic stop device allowed a remote control shut-down of the vehicle in case of an emergency” Is that a lead? [0] https://www.researchgate.net/profil…

Post by btilly » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 4:28 AM UTC

majormajor wrote: post #37

btilly wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly recommend that you read https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674537514 . It explains the economic reasons why it is hard to get collective action to happen. It also explains why any government organization organized for collective action in time is likely to undergo regulatory capture, meaning that the people you wanted to regulate are in control of the regulations and manipulate them for their…

The description of the book seems to take "acting as a group is necessary" as a given, actually, by my read. Right up front! "Economists have long understood that defense, law, and order were public goods that could not be marketed to individuals, and that taxation was necessary." So if the alternative is more self-motivated individual action, you obviously don't have to go far to find tons of examples of how that re…