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Don't mess with Newegg

blog.newegg.com

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Re: Don't mess with Newegg

#181

Post by superuser »

I'm a little surprised that patent trolls get such a bad rap on hacker news. I would argue that patent trolls exists to protect the small inventors. Without patent trolls, the big companies can easily infringe the small inventors' patents knowing full well that the little guys can't afford to go up against them in court. The patent trolls merely step in to enforce the rights of the small inventors.

That is not to say that software patents are a good idea or should be allowed, and one could certainly make the case against them, but that's a separate issue.

Re: Don't mess with Newegg

#182

Post by harryh »

klunger wrote: post #141

I'm American, but have lived in Scandinavia for a couple years now. When I incorporated my bitty start-up last year, I could choose between incorporating here or in the US. Despite the higher tax burden, I ultimately decided to incorporate here. Why? There were a lot of reasons, but the two biggest ones were: 1) I didn't want to worry about patent trolls 2) I didn't want to worry about net neutrality effecting my fir…

Are you sure that the biggest reason wasn't that you live in Scandinavia?

Re: Don't mess with Newegg

#183

Post by wutbrodo »

mikeash wrote: post #166
wutbrodo wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The HN community collectively hasn't ever been able to grasp this concept; apparently if a corporation has any possible benefit from an action, it MUST be the motivation behind the action. It's a particularly delightful cop-out because any positive action (including philanthropy) can be dismissed as a PR move.

This would seem to imply that mantis369 is representative of "the HN community" but jeorgun is not, which seems like an odd distinction.

> This would seem to imply that mantis369 is representative of "the HN community" but jeorgun is not, which seems like an odd distinction.

I thought it was evident that I wasn't basing my assessment on a sample size of two comments on one thread...

You shouldn't read an opinion about a characteristic of "the HN community" as applying to "every single person who comments on HN", but rather to "HN in general, as expressed through comments and votes on those comments, across hundreds or thousands of different threads, has historically showed this trait".

Surely you understand why I went with the much more concise "the HN community", given that it's IME almost universally understood to refer to be equivalent to the above longer definition.

Re: Don't mess with Newegg

#184

Post by mikeash »

wutbrodo wrote: post #183
mikeash wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would seem to imply that mantis369 is representative of "the HN community" but jeorgun is not, which seems like an odd distinction.

> This would seem to imply that mantis369 is representative of "the HN community" but jeorgun is not, which seems like an odd distinction. I thought it was evident that I wasn't basing my assessment on a sample size of two comments on one thread... You shouldn't read an opinion about a characteristic of "the HN community" as applying to "every single person who comments on HN", but rather to "HN in general, as expres…

Well yes, but then the same kind of thing applies to my post. A few people express this attitude, in general, but they're rapidly countered by others.

Re: Don't mess with Newegg

#186

Post by jessaustin »

yxhuvud wrote: post #143
jessaustin wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL: The trial court had found for Newegg on the infringement case, but had not taken the additional step of awarding attorney's fees to Newegg. The appeals court has now recommended that the trial court take that additional step. The appeals court doesn't have time to wade through reams of legal invoices. Actually the trial court may have been trying to avoid that as well, but now it has no choice. It's my impress…

Living in a country where the default is that the loser pays (within reason), I must wonder: Why is discouraging litigation a bad thing?

Siblings have plausible explanations. Another reason, however, is that we have so many lawyers, and they must be employed somehow, otherwise one of them might take the judge's job. Why not employ the teeming masses in litigation and/or the prevention of litigation?

Re: Don't mess with Newegg

#187

Post by tmerr »

mikeash wrote: post #164
calbear81 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Newegg has always been against paying out even way back in the day when I worked there. In the early days of patent trolling, someone sued us in a printer-related lawsuit and they offered to settle for a small sum (VERY small). Basically, the in-house lawyer said that it would cost more money to fight it given his hourly wage but that the CEO was not going to pay if it was a frivolous lawsuit. I see that the same pri…

It's strange that more companies don't see the long term problems created by signaling that you're willing to spend money to settle frivolous lawsuits. Another symptom of the corporate world's excessive focus on the short term?

Not all companies have as much power as Newegg to fight back. I'm guessing it does often make financial sense to just pay it, otherwise companies would have turned the tables already. I don't think it's a lack of long term thinking as much as it is a tragedy of the commons related situation.

Re: Don't mess with Newegg

#188

Post by lotharbot »

hnnewguy wrote: post #129
lotharbot wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I am surprised I am losing karma for this. For what? An opposing view?" As I said above, here on HN, mere truth is not enough to make us consider a comment to be a positive contribution. We select for interesting and directly relevant comments. Your comment is honest, but doesn't particularly add value to the discussion; you might consider it relevant, but I find it tangential and uninteresting. Downvotes are the…

> "As I said above, here on HN, mere truth is not enough to make us consider a comment to be a positive contribution." It sounds like you'd like to think your community-of-choice is unique, but get over it. There is no "we" here, nor is there some amazing comment quality optimization going on. This place goes hive-mind like any other forum on the internet. "We're" not special.

> "you'd like to think your community-of-choice is unique"

All communities are unique. This is the only community I know of that obsesses over a guy who makes bingo cards for a living. That doesn't mean we're necessarily better than other communities, just that we have our own specific approach to downvotes that people coming from other communities might be surprised by. (In particular, we usually downvote tangential/uninteresting comments, memes, and humor -- edw519 is an exception because his humor is typically both topical and side-splittingly entertaining.)

The person in question posted one of those types of comments, and then asked why it was being poorly received. He has now been educated as to what "we", in aggregate, are looking for.

Re: Don't mess with Newegg

#189

Post by queensnake »

superuser wrote: post #181

I'm a little surprised that patent trolls get such a bad rap on hacker news. I would argue that patent trolls exists to protect the small inventors. Without patent trolls, the big companies can easily infringe the small inventors' patents knowing full well that the little guys can't afford to go up against them in court. The patent trolls merely step in to enforce the rights of the small inventors. That is not to say…

No, the difference is in the added word troll, not simply a defender. Trolls are non-practicing, and produce nothing and protect nothing. I'm sure a legitimate 'little guy' with a patent would get all the sympathy he deserves here, unless perhaps, as you mention, it's a software patent.

Re: Don't mess with Newegg

#190

Post by aptwebapps »

jebblue wrote: post #153
aptwebapps wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patent trolls are definitely a distinct problem, although the problem is exacerbated by, if not created by, the profusion of bad software patents. So if you reduced the number of bad patents you might fix that particular problem but, for me, software patents are a problem in and of themselves.

OK I'm with you, abolish patents! Legalize pot too while we're at it! Free love and sex any time anywhere!

Abolish software patents, not all patents. The costs are substantial and the benefits do not seem to be.
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