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Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit

blog.comma.ai

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Re: Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit

#191

Post by plafl »

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.

There are already insurance companies offering coverage for legal expenses. The interesting part here is maybe that by restricting it to patents the insurer has a very clear idea of the risk being covered, as all the patents are public.

Edit: on the other hand your potential customers will be difficult to convince. To pay insurance you must have risk aversion, something I don't expect to be abundant among startups

Re: Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit

#192

Post by bratbag »

j-bos wrote: post #6
labrador wrote: post #3

I always thought Hotz an interesting character. This paragraph adds to that impression: "What he didn’t take into account is that comma isn’t run by rational actors in suits sitting on a committee. It’s run by me, George Hotz. I’m willing to lose $1M before I give him $10k. We will hire an amazing legal team, fight this, and while doing so invalidate his patents so they can’t be used against anyone else. Not because…

Strikes me that a lot of today's ills would be solved (or replaced) by more individual agency. Gold applause to Hotz.

Sure, I'll just engage individual agency with these millions I don't have in my pocket to fight a legal battle.

Re: Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit

#194

Post by ddalex »

bigDinosaur wrote: post #184
wombatpm wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Run the numbers: Assuming you need a legal staff of 20 with avg cost 500k per. So that’s 10 million per year. Double it for rent, SGA, etc. we’re at 20 million per year. Offer a protection package at 10k per year, you need 2000 paying customers. Since all the lawyers are on staff, you can have them invalidating patents when not defending case. If you structure it like a mutual insurance company, you could return a po…

I like it, although you left out the part where your other business arm researches potential troll lawsuits before they happen and goes after companies who don't pay you protection money. /s

I'm establishing another organisation that provides mutual protection for companies that look to protect their valuable IP by actively fighting against dismantling of patents, and systematic shakedowns by anti-patent organisations .... oh wait

Re: Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit

#195

Post by pas »

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…

> Big corporation X can now run up lawyer cost that you have to pay if you lose

This is very much a consequence of the adversarial and very procedural (and costly) common law system as implemented in the US.

There's nothing stopping the US from passing new legislation to address exactly this downside.

The main issue is that the "big corp" can file seemingly endless motions to dismiss at any step (and then file for appeal, etc). But it seems perfectly possible to have a law that instructs the courts to by-default consider the merits of the other side without requiring that other side to also file whatever counter-motion to "yes, please keep the fucking suit going, because some random precedent from 1832 that google coughed up is almost surely bullshit, thanks y'honor"

Of course in many cases judges are elected. Which has its own very serious problems. [0]

The current workaround for the "big corp" problem is "class action", and they happen very frequently in the US. See also the small claims courts.

That said, the real problem is that the whole US system of torts/liability shifts a lot of responsibility on individuals, but in a way that's perfectly aligned with "mo' money = less worry" (Oh really? Who would have guessed.), because there are very few proactive, upfront, visible, legible pro-consumer regulations.

The most visible part is probably the endless EULA/ToS-style texts that nobody takes seriously [1] ... except courts. (See the famous case of a cruise ticket attached to a dissenting SCOTUS opinion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival_Cruise_Lines,_Inc._v.... )

[0] https://www.propublica.org/article/these-judges-can-have-les...

[1] https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/chief_justice_robert...

Re: Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit

#196

Post by bloak »

matthewheath wrote: post #51
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…

In England, the losing side usually pays at least a large portion (if not all) of the costs of the winning side. 100% cost awards are rare, but generally the costs burden is placed on whoever loses. This seems to reduce frivolous lawsuits (depending on who is suing/being sued) but you can ask for a cost capping order to limit the amount you have to pay out if you lose, which partially helps address the issue of "they…

An important detail: it shouldn't be (and as far as I know isn't) the loser who pays but the party who behaved unreasonably. For example, if you damage someone's property, offer to pay £100, but they refuse your offer and instead sue you and win .... £100, then you won't be paying their legal costs. In fact, they may have to pay your costs because they were being unreasonable in bringing the case to court after you had made a reasonable offer out of court.

Re: Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit

#197

Post by _delirium »

MertsA wrote: post #182
MaxHoppersGhost wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you implying that Texas is corrupt?

He's referring to the Eastern District of Texas which is infamous for patent trolls. A small number of judges find in favor of patent trolls far more often than the rest of the nation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_District_Court_f...

As the link notes, the Eastern District of Texas forum-shopping strategy for patent lawsuits was more or less shut down by the Supreme Court in a 2017 ruling [1]. This suit against comma.ai is, probably as a result, filed in the District of Delaware, since comma.ai is a Delaware corporation.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TC_Heartland_LLC_v._Kraft_Food...

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