Exposing Patent Trolls
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Exposing Patent Trolls
1–10 of 14 posts
Re: Exposing Patent Trolls
#2Yeah now they'll stop extracting their billions of dollars from the industry and be forced to live the rest of their lives with their billions of dollars extracted from the industry! (Bitter that justice is always years behind and these atrocities will never be rectified, just mostly stopped going forward)
Re: Exposing Patent Trolls
#3This is great.
I might also suggest a section of trollingeffects.org called something like "What We've Lost." Meaning, a catalog companies that have shut down, people who have been unable to pursue ideas, expenses that have been passed on to consumers, etc. Use stories. Make it concrete. Clear. Poignant. Because, at the core, that's what all of this is about. What we've lost and what we'll continue to lose to these assholes.
Re: Exposing Patent Trolls
#4Can someone explain to someone who doesn't really know much about this topic other than that it angers them immensely... why can't the laws do anything to stop this nonsense??
Re: Exposing Patent Trolls
#5Another resource that exposes patent trolls:
Re: Exposing Patent Trolls
#6Another resource that exposes patent trolls: http://www.plainsite.org/tags/index.html?id=635
Very cool.
Re: Exposing Patent Trolls
#7Can someone explain to someone who doesn't really know much about this topic other than that it angers them immensely... why can't the laws do anything to stop this nonsense??
Because the trolls are very good at what they do. They usually don't sue, but rather threaten to sue unless the company they're targeting pays a fee. Said fee is set to be below what it would cost the company to fight back.
Virtually every time a company has fought back (and a decision has been reached)[0], the troll has lost. However, it costs companies (especially startups) a LOT more money to fight back. Many roll over and pay instead of fighting, and the trolls make their money.
There is a new law in the works [1] that aims to make the trolls pay the bills in the case the company fights back and wins. This will make trolling very expensive, now that companies can fight without worry of being shut down due to fees.
[0] Sadly, many companies run out of money before this point. [1] http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr845
Re: Exposing Patent Trolls
#8Next step: add an easy way to link these back to http://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/prior-art to initiate and document a crowdsourced prior art search.
Re: Exposing Patent Trolls
#9How many companies have successfully counter-sued a troll? for harrassment, for example.
Is there a site with names and photos of the trolls and their lawyers? Might be interesting for trollingeffects. SOBs gallery.
Re: Exposing Patent Trolls
#10As an aside, is it possible, and therefore cheaper and more beneficial to the trolled party, to just endlessly stall and delay with various tactics, such as stretching out response times as long as possible and then responding with a proposed (low ball) settlement, awaiting the response to that, waiting again for a long period of time, proposing another (low ball) settlement, shuffling around the contacts at an organizaton, etc. Or is there some requirement to come to a conclusion within a specified time?