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Law Students Fend Off a Patent Troll

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Re: Law Students Fend Off a Patent Troll

#31

Post by curiouscats »

darksim905 wrote: post #16

It 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.

I think it means something, but I agree with you I wish the patent troll wasn't getting away with it.

This seems similar to a house that had an alarm system. The thief opened the door and started to look for good stuff to take then heard the alarm go off and ran away. Mainly I would say the home owner "won" in that case by not having their stuff taken. Though it is annoying that the thief could come back and they have to deal with the thief's break in attempt. And it is annoying the thief wasn't caught and put in jail to prevent them from just going to the next house and breaking in there.

Re: Law Students Fend Off a Patent Troll

#32

Post by teachingaway »

cbd1984 wrote: post #28
u124556 wrote: post #5

>the troll simply dropped its case against CarShield Yet the startup and the judicial system already lost time on this. There should be a fee for withdrawing cases like this.

Careful: It's hard to craft remedies against patent trolls that don't also penalize poor inventors whose work was really and truly ripped off by a much richer entity. Even simple rules like "loser pays" can make the potential downside of filing a valid suit so intimidating that large players get a complete pass.

Maybe its a close question for the first 2 or 3 patent lawsuits. But when someone's filing 10+ patent lawsuits at a clip, its difficult to imagine a legitimate scenario.

Re: Law Students Fend Off a Patent Troll

#33

Post by teachingaway »

rurounijones wrote: post #29
darksim905 wrote: post #16

It 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.

Is there a legal procedure that would have made it possible for the defense team to say to the judge "It should not be possible to dismiss this unless it is with prejudice"?

In most cases, if a plaintiff withdraws, it needs to be with prejudice. Thats the default rule. In this particular instance, there was a procedural twist that make it a somewhat close call.

Re: Law Students Fend Off a Patent Troll

#36

Post by brerlapn »

peterJHS wrote: post #18
ilikemustard wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 situat…

The clinic in question is part of the students' legal education, so referring to it as an unpaid internship is misleading--they are "paid" in school credit. 75% of my third year law school course credit was via working in a legal clinic. Had I not been in a clinic, I would have been taking classes instead for the same amount of credit, and learned a lot less about being a lawyer.

I agree this isn't the solution to a fundamentally broken patent litigation process, but these students are almost assuredly better off for the experience and it's a mutually beneficial relationship for the students and clients who can't afford traditional legal representation.

Re: Law Students Fend Off a Patent Troll

#37

Post by coreyja »

teachingaway wrote: post #33
rurounijones wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a legal procedure that would have made it possible for the defense team to say to the judge "It should not be possible to dismiss this unless it is with prejudice"?

In most cases, if a plaintiff withdraws, it needs to be with prejudice. Thats the default rule. In this particular instance, there was a procedural twist that make it a somewhat close call.

Can you elaborate or know where I could read more?

Re: Law Students Fend Off a Patent Troll

#38

Post by funkyy »

I love how Medium becomes my favourite "time waster". I remember about buzz in media about how pointless Medium was but since some time majority of articles I found on major suggesting websites from Medium are extremely interesting.

When reading articles from Medium I feel like I am not only not wasting time but acquiring knowledge in extremely fast pace.

Re: Law Students Fend Off a Patent Troll

#39

Post by monochromatic »

> The patent behind all these lawsuits is not particularly innovative. It claims something about sending notifications after an emergency phone call. Here’s the gist from one of the figures . . . .

This is a little disingenuous. You know the patent doesn't cover the "gist" or any particular figure. It covers the claims (which you don't mention at all, even in passing). And for some reason, you don't even tell us what the patent number is so we can look at it for ourselves!

From a little googling, I suspect that we're talking about Pat. No. 6,775,356. But why hide the ball and characterize the patent as "not particularly innovative" when you could just let people see it for themselves?

https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=patentimages.storage.goog...

Re: Law Students Fend Off a Patent Troll

#40

Post by frankacter »

dhackner wrote: post #15
jimbokun wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I would as well.
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