I love this story and it's a great effort by this law school. I wonder if there could be some crowdsourced efforts to pool together key documents, resources, processes, etc so that defending against a patent troll could be more efficient. This would lower costs of defense and further discourage patent trolls.
Law Students Fend Off a Patent Troll
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Re: Law Students Fend Off a Patent Troll
#12THESE PEOPLE DESERVE CREDIT:
- Prof. Jonathan Askin - @jaskin - runs the clinic, and trusted us to try this experiment.
- Maegan Fuller - @mafuller21 - did the lion's share of research and writing. Brilliant and dedicated student. She just took the bar exam.
- Jorge Torres - @jorgemtorres - Guy who actually knows patent litigation. Too bad he dropped out of law to be a VC. Pitch him :-)
Re: Law Students Fend Off a Patent Troll
#13I love this story and it's a great effort by this law school. I wonder if there could be some crowdsourced efforts to pool together key documents, resources, processes, etc so that defending against a patent troll could be more efficient. This would lower costs of defense and further discourage patent trolls.
Relevant link: http://patents.stackexchange.com/.
Re: Law Students Fend Off a Patent Troll
#14I love this. But, am saddened that the troll hasn't lost. The troll is free to move on to the next mark, which likely won't have a free legal team behind them. I wonder if invalidating patents, that trolls commonly use, a good use of a law student's time?
What would be really awesome is if the BLIP clinic students decided to dedicate themselves to destroying this particular troll. Since they'd already put in the hours getting up to speed on the patent in question (and filing that likely-would-have-been-successful motion), they should reach out to the other folks who have/will be sued by 911 and offer to defend them. Troll the troll, as it were.
Another comment mentioned Maegan Fuller just passed the bar exam. Could be a great way to get a budding litigation career off the ground.
Re: Law Students Fend Off a Patent Troll
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
What would be really awesome is if the BLIP clinic students decided to dedicate themselves to destroying this particular troll. Since they'd already put in the hours getting up to speed on the patent in question (and filing that likely-would-have-been-successful motion), they should reach out to the other folks who have/will be sued by 911 and offer to defend them. Troll the troll, as it were.
Another comment mentioned Maegan Fuller just passed the bar exam. Could be a great way to get a budding litigation career off the ground.
If she started a kickstarter, I'd be happy to fund...
Re: Law Students Fend Off a Patent Troll
#16It was dismissed without prejudice. This means nothing. If a patent troll wanted to do the same thing & file for the same lawsuit, they could easily do so. This isn't a "win" for the sutdents as much as it's "oh, let's just drop it."
I'm glad they didn't have to the pay the troll, but I also hate when the troll doesn't get what it deserves, either: losing.
Re: Law Students Fend Off a Patent Troll
#17So much WIN!
Re: Law Students Fend Off a Patent Troll
#18This article suggests that this is a win-win situation for the startups and law students, but, it's a pretty one-sided deal here. This doesn't work out at all in the long term without unfair exploitation of the unpaid labor of the students. While helping out gives the students experience, it's not reasonable to consider this any sort of real option beyond an occasional situation in which a startup can solicit a law-s…
It's not "unfair exploitation". The students willingly sign on to get meaningful experience working on real cases. It gives them a chance to do real work and see more closely how actual law work is done. From the sounds of the article, there is one small clinic in Brooklyn that makes this a "real option" for companies. It's not like every company that faces patent trolls can rely on it, but I don't think it would be…
In a small number of cases it can work - but, you can't expect students to take on legal cases for you for free-99 whenever you like.
This is no different than big companies hiring unpaid interns. Sure it can kinda work in a handful of cases, but it's harmful to exploit people to perform unpaid labor.
I can recall a great many HN articles complaining about companies asking coders to work unpaid in a variety of situations. Working unpaid on learning projects in school is super! Getting experience is great! But, the reality of the situation is there are massively degenerate patent laws at work here and the solution isn't for startups to expect a contingent of students to work there buts off gratis for them.
Re: Law Students Fend Off a Patent Troll
#19I love this story and it's a great effort by this law school. I wonder if there could be some crowdsourced efforts to pool together key documents, resources, processes, etc so that defending against a patent troll could be more efficient. This would lower costs of defense and further discourage patent trolls.
We definitely want to put together some guidelines for other schools to run similar projects. In fact, @jorgemtorres wrote an entire Kauffman Fellows thesis on this topic.
Re: Law Students Fend Off a Patent Troll
#20It was dismissed without prejudice. This means nothing. If a patent troll wanted to do the same thing & file for the same lawsuit, they could easily do so. This isn't a "win" for the sutdents as much as it's "oh, let's just drop it." I'm glad they didn't have to the pay the troll, but I also hate when the troll doesn't get what it deserves, either: losing.
pretty much true. Its not a grand slam win, and the case could come back (but not in Delaware).
I still think its a win.