The Patent Pledge
paulgraham.com
The Patent Pledge
1–10 of 204 posts
Re: The Patent Pledge
#2PG suggests that this won't stop the trolls but it might deter more traditional companies.
Does anyone have stats on who is doing the most damage to early companies? Given the press, it's easy to think that trolls are the biggest offenders by an order of magnitude. Is there data that suggests otherwise?
Re: The Patent Pledge
#3I like the idea of pledging, though there may be some variance (what if a startup violates a startup, margin is high, the technical innovation was real, etc?) That being said, there is a lot to be said in simplicity.
I'm no lawyer - I have to ask the logical question - does publicly stating this pledge bust any opportunity to double back (i.e. it is more legally binding than just a pledge?)
Re: The Patent Pledge
#4The content of the pledge seems to indicate that there are a lot of (or at least some) cases where large companies are suing very small companies (< 25 people) over patent infringement. Is this the case? I've only heard about the patent litigation between the tech giants, and not anything about small firms getting sued by larger ones. Are there any recent/high profile examples of this that I missed? Or is it just something that goes unreported?
Re: The Patent Pledge
#5Re: The Patent Pledge
#6So if a company grows beyond it's sub-25 people are they expected to then license any technology they're infringing on? Could this lead to an even bigger penalty if the company is made aware that they are infringing when they are small and doesn't act on it when they grow, thus willfully infringing?
Re: The Patent Pledge
#7Do non-trolls really bring patent cases against small companies? A company of 25 people soon enough.
Re: The Patent Pledge
#8Companies with less than 25 people are relatively unlikely to have sufficiently deep pockets to attract patent attacks in the first place. And trolls, of course, won't care about the pledge. Nice idea, but doesn't seem that useful to me.
Re: The Patent Pledge
#9This is ultimately not a helpful avenue to pursue. Asking companies to please not abuse a favorite group of companies (in this case startups) is not a solution to this problem. It's very similar in my opinion to the patent exceptions being carved out in congress right now for the finance industry (their favorite group of companies). We need to be striving to help everyone with patent reform, not just our favorite types of companies.
Re: The Patent Pledge
#10I like the idea of pledging, though there may be some variance (what if a startup violates a startup, margin is high, the technical innovation was real, etc?) That being said, there is a lot to be said in simplicity. I'm no lawyer - I have to ask the logical question - does publicly stating this pledge bust any opportunity to double back (i.e. it is more legally binding than just a pledge?)
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