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Newegg vs. Patent Trolls: When We Win, You Win

blog.newegg.com

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Re: Newegg vs. Patent Trolls: When We Win, You Win

#91

Post by tachion »

dtparr wrote: post #64
tachion wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are other countries, where this issue is solved (more or less) by the fact that the side which have lost the case is covering trial costs. This does stop 'court trolling' because even is the cost of winning the case is higher than the cost of the settlement, winning the case nullifies that cost. But hey, US is special this way! (and many others... ;)

How do they avoid disincentivizing small parties from suing larger ones in this system? Let's say I have a strong case (say 90% chance of winning) to sue an insurance company for, say, $50k. But the cost of their legal team/experts/discovery to defend it is, ~$500k, then things look a bit more bleak. Are there caps? Is one side prohibited from charging substantially more than the other?

Well, if you want to sue them for $50k, and the cost of defense is $500k and your case is 90% chance to be lost, then the solution is quite simple - settle the case for 50k.

Re: Newegg vs. Patent Trolls: When We Win, You Win

#92

Post by mentat »

_up wrote: post #89
tachion wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are other countries, where this issue is solved (more or less) by the fact that the side which have lost the case is covering trial costs. This does stop 'court trolling' because even is the cost of winning the case is higher than the cost of the settlement, winning the case nullifies that cost. But hey, US is special this way! (and many others... ;)

But even then you propbably will get reimbursed only what an average lawyer would have been costing you. Not what the specialized high profile Lawyer normaly asks for.

I think it's actual costs.

Re: Newegg vs. Patent Trolls: When We Win, You Win

#93

Post by sosborn »

brlewis wrote: post #74
jebblue wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused, are you asking if you should be fighting patent trolls or patents? If trolls, then fighting them is better than not. Patents are tools, valid and legal, you don't fight tools, you use them, improve them, complain about them, etc.

I'm talking about patents. Patents are tools in the same sense that landmines are.

Why choose the word landmine? What's wrong with, say, a hammer?

Re: Newegg vs. Patent Trolls: When We Win, You Win

#94

Post by sliverstorm »

devy wrote: post #69

Erich Spangenberg is America's most notorious patent troll mafia head. I blames him for taking full advantage of the broken U.S. patent system to squeeze upward of $30 billion each year and the tremendous waste of use our legal system resources. EFF[1] and NYT[2] ran full reports on him previously. [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/07/times-profiles-patent-... [2] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/14/business/has-p…

There's parasites in nature, no reason to think there wouldn't be parasites in human society...

Re: Newegg vs. Patent Trolls: When We Win, You Win

#95

Post by sbov »

adebtlawyer wrote: post #45
tachion wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are other countries, where this issue is solved (more or less) by the fact that the side which have lost the case is covering trial costs. This does stop 'court trolling' because even is the cost of winning the case is higher than the cost of the settlement, winning the case nullifies that cost. But hey, US is special this way! (and many others... ;)

Having litigated against adversaries who use the courts primarily to be a nuisance, with little or no regard to the actual strength or weakness of their claims, I've become convinced "loser pays costs and attorney's fees of prevailing party" is a better system than what we have in the U.S.

Is there any issue with unfair inflation of costs? From what I understand these patent trolls are mostly teams of lawyers. Under this ruling could they charge themselves exorbitant rates, then the few times they do win makes up for the times they lose?

What about the situation with east Texas where they side with the patent holder the majority of the time?

Under this I might almost be more likely to just settle. Do I pay nothing, a paltry sum to settle, or 2-4x the cost without "loser pays" to lose? If I have even a 10% chance of losing it sounds like settling might be a good deal.

Re: Newegg vs. Patent Trolls: When We Win, You Win

#96

Post by eigenvector »

adebtlawyer wrote: post #84
tachion wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not the only difference between the justice systems in US and EU (EU is what I consider to be elswhere): in US the case is the battle between boths sides lawyer, and the judge is simply a watching function, that a the end calls the sentence, based on the outcome of that battle. In EU, the case is a so called 'process of finding material truth' and the judge can take active stance, call witnesses, ask addition…

The US system is also supposed to be a process of truth-finding, just that we leave the parties to support their own positions as adversaries. Without advocacy, American courts do very little on their own. So far that doesn't bother me, but I'm a lawyer. For someone thrown into the system, there can be an incorrect expectation that the court will automatically act to do justice.

Part of the problem with the adversarial system is that if one party has bad lawyers, you can end up with bad case law as a result of them failing to properly argue their case.

Re: Newegg vs. Patent Trolls: When We Win, You Win

#97

Post by Lawtonfogle »

tachion wrote: post #41
Lawtonfogle wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The legal system is not equally available to all entities. That it is the center of how we enforce our rights and hold others to their duties is a major problem. Even if we could fix it in the case of patents, we still have major issues within other civil and criminal courts. I do not know the solution or even have any half baked ideas on it, but I do think the first step to any solution is for us, as a society, to r…

There are other countries, where this issue is solved (more or less) by the fact that the side which have lost the case is covering trial costs. This does stop 'court trolling' because even is the cost of winning the case is higher than the cost of the settlement, winning the case nullifies that cost. But hey, US is special this way! (and many others... ;)

This does not solve it. Consider little guy suing mega corp. Little guy's costs may be covered if he wins, but with only 50K to spend, he still could lose because mega corp can drop 5M on the case. This could even make it worse, because without the ability to recover costs, little guy has a small chance at victory and losing the 50k and a large chance at losing the 50k with nothing. With the loser having to pay, it changes to little guy having a small chance at victory and losing nothing and a large chance at losing 5M + 50K.

Re: Newegg vs. Patent Trolls: When We Win, You Win

#98

Post by throwawaykf05 »

ikeboy wrote: post #36
throwawaykf05 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> one of the main reasons that patent trolling is so successful is that the cost of settling is smaller even than the cost of winning a suit. Is the underlying reason for this strategy the low costs of settlement, or the extremely high costs of lawsuits? What if the value of a patent really is only a few thousand dollars? Note that this very tactic is used by big companies to avoid licensing valid and useful patents…

If you know you have a valid case (you aren't a troll), how hard would it be in practice to find someone to front the money for a lawsuit? Or for that matter, could you go to the competition and sell your patent? That is, say Apple's infringing on my patent; will Samsung buy the patent from me for a fair price and then sue Apple?

There are people who specialize in evaluating patents and being the middleman if they believe there is value in licensing and/or asserting your patents. They are often thought of as just another breed of patent trolls.

Re: Newegg vs. Patent Trolls: When We Win, You Win

#99

Post by Lawtonfogle »

sbov wrote: post #95
adebtlawyer wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having litigated against adversaries who use the courts primarily to be a nuisance, with little or no regard to the actual strength or weakness of their claims, I've become convinced "loser pays costs and attorney's fees of prevailing party" is a better system than what we have in the U.S.

Is there any issue with unfair inflation of costs? From what I understand these patent trolls are mostly teams of lawyers. Under this ruling could they charge themselves exorbitant rates, then the few times they do win makes up for the times they lose? What about the situation with east Texas where they side with the patent holder the majority of the time? Under this I might almost be more likely to just settle. Do I…

>Under this ruling could they charge themselves exorbitant rates, then the few times they do win makes up for the times they lose?

Not to mention that the costs to the losers the few times they win would really scare anyone who isn't able to eat the massive costs anyways. Would you sue someone from stealing thousands from you if there was a small chance at you owing them millions?

Re: Newegg vs. Patent Trolls: When We Win, You Win

#100

Post by x0054 »

Perhaps a solution to this would be a Kickstarter like anti patent troll site. Patent trolls usually go after smaller businesses at first, businesses who could not possibly afford to fight, even if they wanted. The site would allow a business to post their legal case online, and other businesses who face similar exposure, could contribute to the defense fund.

The "perk" of contributing would be that you would get access to all of the expert witness prepared statements and legal work, so if a patent troll comes after you next, you would have a lot of your defense work already done for you. Plus, once the patent troll looses a case, especially on appeal, that decision can be used as precedent.

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