The Real Toll of Patent Trolls • Hacker News Board

Re: The Real Toll of Patent Trolls

#51

Post by rayiner » Fri, Dec 14, 2012, 2:08 PM UTC

sigsergv wrote: post #49

rayiner wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you "powerless to defend yourself or even understand the process?" There is nothing magic about the legal system. You can pick up the crucial aspects of the patent law probably in less time than it'd take you to pick up a new scripting language. And since it's federal law, the rules of civil procedure and evidence are written in very easy to understand English.

You WON'T “pick up crucial aspects” because there all aspects are crucial. Law practice costs so much money mainly because it's totally entangled and messed up, and ordinary person just physically can't follow all these legal procedures correctly.

This is not true at all. There is nothing complex about basic legal practice. Legal services get expensive because companies hire expensive people to work on very complicated problems (e.g. multi billion business deal gone wrong). The process itself, for simple problems, is not complex or "messed up."

Re: The Real Toll of Patent Trolls

#52

Post by thaumaturgy » Fri, Dec 14, 2012, 2:58 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #51

sigsergv wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You WON'T “pick up crucial aspects” because there all aspects are crucial. Law practice costs so much money mainly because it's totally entangled and messed up, and ordinary person just physically can't follow all these legal procedures correctly.

This is not true at all. There is nothing complex about basic legal practice. Legal services get expensive because companies hire expensive people to work on very complicated problems (e.g. multi billion business deal gone wrong). The process itself, for simple problems, is not complex or "messed up."

We're not talking about small-claims court here. Your profile says that you're an attorney; I would be absolutely stunned if any trial attorney would suggest that a pro se defendant could prevail in a patent lawsuit against a much more resourceful organization without any more experience than reading a book or two (let alone a "how to").

You would know as well as anyone that legal actions are more a game than an effort to determine who actually is right or wrong. The entity with the greater amount of money in the bank can afford attorneys who are better at playing the game; while everybody loves a good story of the self-taught layman winning a case, in reality most laymen would get absolutely screwed.

Certainly if it's a fight worth fighting -- if the patent dispute is that important to the victim's business -- then they should fight it as well as they can, especially since they would have so much riding on the outcome: potential grievous damages awarded to the plaintiff, for one.

And, this all presupposes that the layman is lucky enough to get a judge presiding over the case that has some competence in the area of expertise covered by the patent. If the suit is held in the East District Court of Texas, well, the defendant already has the odds stacked against them.

Even if the lawsuit doesn't go to trial, and gets settled like 96% of other such suits [1], the layman's ignorance of process could likely end up costing them far more in the settlement than they would spend on letters from a patent attorney's desk. The layman would be attempting to negotiate from a much weaker position, and the attorneys for the patent troll would know it.

[1]: http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2011/06/02/what-to-do-sued-for-pat...

Re: The Real Toll of Patent Trolls

#53

Post by rayiner » Fri, Dec 14, 2012, 3:26 PM UTC

thaumaturgy wrote: post #52

rayiner wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not true at all. There is nothing complex about basic legal practice. Legal services get expensive because companies hire expensive people to work on very complicated problems (e.g. multi billion business deal gone wrong). The process itself, for simple problems, is not complex or "messed up."

We're not talking about small-claims court here. Your profile says that you're an attorney; I would be absolutely stunned if any trial attorney would suggest that a pro se defendant could prevail in a patent lawsuit against a much more resourceful organization without any more experience than reading a book or two (let alone a "how to"). You would know as well as anyone that legal actions are more a game than an effo…

I'm talking about "legal procedures" here, and the claim that ordinary people couldn't hope to follow them. They are pretty streamlined and easy to follow for a framework that must scale from small controversies to enormous ones. I think it's totally possible for an ordinary intelligent person (say an engineer) to pick up a couple of books and navigate that process. The judiciary goes to great lengths to ensure that, because it is very sensitive to the fact that a lawyer should not be necessary to defend yourself in court.

Now, would I recommend taking on a patent troll yourself? No, but that doesn't mean you couldn't do it, and even have a good chance if winning if the case is indeed totally meritless.

Re: The Real Toll of Patent Trolls

#54

Post by lancefisher » Fri, Dec 14, 2012, 4:04 PM UTC

mistercow wrote: post #36

lancefisher wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.google.com/search?q=define+literally "2. Used to acknowledge that something is not literally true but is used for emphasis or to express strong feeling."

I think we should stand our ground on this one. We've let every word that can convey the correct definition of "literally" slide down the hyperbole treadmill. I realize that languages live and evolve, but the loss of all unambiguous indicators of actual literalness has made our language objectively worse. You might argue that we can always tell the intent from context, but the whole point of "literally" is for when t…

People use literally to emphasize things all the time. I was surprised to find this definition in a dictionary though. I just find it hilarious that literally can literally mean not literally.