Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit

Post by zackmorris » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 3:55 PM UTC

alecco wrote: post #177

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.

Most large corporations have a huge chest of patents they use to keep incumbents out. Their lobbyists would never allow a change to the current status quo. Lobbying should be banned. Fix the root of the problem.

Post by zaarn » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 4:05 PM UTC

kurupt213 wrote: post #268

jacquesm wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. I sued a party in Germany, won the case, got awarded 10K in legal costs (which actually was quite high, but it was a complete travesty) and another 25K in damages as well as annulment of whatever the suit was about. Then the party I sued absconded to the US (he already had a house there and his family was already living there) and simply never returned. The real legal bill was 50K. But at least the annulment…

In the US, the constitutional right to a lawyer only extends to defendants in criminal trials. Civil action, even you are sued by the government, is your responsibility regardless of income

Post by cma » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 4:20 PM UTC

pxmpxm wrote: post #91

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…

There very well may be a second order game theory at play - not only you broadcast far and wide that litigation will be exceedingly costly for anyone that tries, but you add an explicit threat that any attempt will result in invalidation risk to plaintiff patent portfolio. For patent trolls, time spent on legal is mostly opportunity cost, but killing their patent portfolio has a real dollar cost associated to it.

Post by rhino369 » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 5:06 PM UTC

denton-scratch wrote: post #256

savrajsingh wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my understanding, you have to go to court to invalidate an issued patent

Yes, that's my understanding too. But if the party asserting the patent decides not to defend it, and drops their claim against you specifically, can you go ahead and invalidate the patent in court? If you can, and there's no defence, then presumably the patent is invalidated by default. But it seems rather odd; in normal civil proceedings, you have an adversary against whom you allege some kind of wrongdoing. Who is…

Post by mrcheesebreeze » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 5:55 PM UTC

wombatpm wrote: post #110

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.

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…