This is the smart thing to do, on many levels, even if this can be risky and distracting, something that VCs would not be willing to back, in the long run he and his company have a lot to gain from this, both in experience and reputation.
Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit
231–240 of 318 posts
Re: Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit
#232This goes both ways, because patents are important. However, after talking to George many times as I watched his company grow with the SF proof of funzies in autonomous driving and DefCon pokes - the guy will not [quit] when he's squarely on the war path. Get 'em, GH.
> 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 really admire what cloudflare did in dealing with patent trolls. If this continues, we want to work to invalidate not just the patents he is wrongfully claiming against us, but his entire patent portfolio.
I hope I can stay up-to-date with story. Nothing more I appreciate more than seeing someone stunting innovation and taking advantage of others hard work getting smacked down.
https://blog.cloudflare.com/the-project-jengo-saga-how-cloud...
Re: Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit
#233There 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.
It's not quite what you're describing, but you can join Open Invention Network for free: https://openinventionnetwork.com/
This is about members not attacking each other, not about defending each other. It could be a first step towards that though.
Re: Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit
#234I want a play by play dramatic court room drama depp heard style, i want the world to see what it looks like to set a patent troll on fire in real-time
I reckon the Prenda Law hearings would have made rivetting daytime viewing (one of the trolls got 14 years). It was copyright trolling, not patent, and the sentence was for various kinds of fraud.
What made the story so entertaining was that every time the trolls wriggled, they got slapped again by some court or other. Hansmeier in particular seems to have been a glutton for punishment.
Re: Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was sent this the other day. Haven’t had a chance to dig deeper. Free for companies under $10M in revenue? (If I remember). https://lotnet.com/sem/
I'm probably misunderstanding (not a law guy) but that seems like a strange mechanism - members of that group transfer legit patents to the patent troll, on the condition that the troll doesn't sue them. This seems to be arming the troll with the tools to attack outside groups - making it somebody else's problem is not the same as eliminating the problem. I'd rather see the Cloudflare approach, beat the barbarians ba…
The key is if. If "members of that group transfer legit patents to the patent troll", every other member receives a license for that patent.
Re: Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit
#236I 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…
His Lex Fridman interview was fascinating. I knew this would be his response just from the headline. Surprised the troll didn't do even a little research.
It is amazing how many lawyers are completely incompetent at everything other than billing. I expect that they will write a letter complaining that they are being harassed by Hotz and his associates and are cancelling the lawsuit for their own safety.
Re: Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit
#237There 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's sense in making it like insurance. Litigation is notoriously risky; the cost of settling is usually orders of magnitude less than the gain of winning. In that respect, it resembles the kind of thing insurers specialize in. So this is simply a specialist insurer, whose USP is that if they think they can invalidate a patent, they go for it. I'd have thought that deterring patent trolls is the opposite of what t…
this makes sense to me - pay a premium each month, get protected from trolls. Up to the insurer whether to pay the "licence fee" or fight them in court, and they can make that decision on behalf of all their customers.
Re: Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really good idea to bring it to yc - they know how much legal fights like these have cost across all of the cohorts. And obviously they would pitch it internally to all existing + future startups. Maybe this is what ends this garbage once and for all?
I think $10k/yr is fairly reasonable even for startups. However, a lot of these trolls go after small businesses, don’t they?
That's the key to it all - you have HR startups, insurance firms, cybersecurity firms etc. bundle the cost of patent troll insurance into their product, give them a commission, and have them sell it to small businesses - not just startups. Then you can keep the price much more affordable because you have an economy of scale!
Re: Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 h…
I trhink it's more complicated than that (IANAL). Isn't it most common to make such a settlement offer "without prejudice"? Then the fact that offer was made can't be brought up in court, so it can't affect the costs ruling.
I’m not sure about England, but in the US how it works is:
The party making the offer can make a part 36 offer (or state equivalent if it exists), which grants automatic presumptions of cost sharing if rejected and the case ends with a more favorable (to the offering party) settlement or reward.
They can do a less formal without prejudice save as to costs offer, which is one the courts can use to decide cost charging, but does not get automatic presumptions of how the sharing should work.
Lastly they can make just plain without prejudice settlement offers. Which won’t factor into costs at all.
Which type of offer to make depends on who (claimant or defendant) is making the offer, and how certain they are about the amount that will be awarded at trial.
For example if a defendant is making an offer that they are absolutely convinced is more than will be awarded at trial (with the idea being that it would cost less than doing the trial without any offer, and having the normal each party pays own costs rule apply), it makes sense to make it a part 36 offer.
However when making a lowball offer, or a reasonable one but that could well be less than what gets awarded at trial, a without prejudice offer is probably better.
On the claimants side, when making a offer that they are convinced is below what they will actually win it may make sense to make it a Part 36 offer. If making an offer closer to or above what they will probably actually win, a without prejudice offer could be more sensible.
Re: Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
I trhink it's more complicated than that (IANAL). Isn't it most common to make such a settlement offer "without prejudice"? Then the fact that offer was made can't be brought up in court, so it can't affect the costs ruling.
I’m not sure about England, but in the US how it works is: The party making the offer can make a part 36 offer (or state equivalent if it exists), which grants automatic presumptions of cost sharing if rejected and the case ends with a more favorable (to the offering party) settlement or reward. They can do a less formal without prejudice save as to costs offer, which is one the courts can use to decide cost charging…
Ha! I knew there were complications, but I didn't realize "without prejudice" was a maze of twisty little passages. Thanks.