How Newegg is Winning the Battle Against Patent Trolls [video] | Hacker News Reader

How Newegg is Winning the Battle Against Patent Trolls [video]

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66 pointslclark17 comments

>more than 30 claims over the past decade -- about various aspects of e-commerce and websites, which were often basic functions like an Internet shopping cart, drop-down menus, and search boxes.

Each wanting $100k plus. That's kind of crazy for a regular ecommerce site.

It's a depressingly well-chosen amount. Absurdly high, but comfortably below the cost + risk value of actually fighting the case.

At this point, Newegg is starting to look like the brilliant player in this game. "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute" really is a potent philosophy, and while $100k is cheaper than fighting the case, it's not cheaper than preventing future suits before they arrive.

Hopefully, firms will start to pool resources to fund legal defenses.

If settling out of court costs $100,000 and losing a lawsuit costs $1,000,000, teaming up will be the dominant strategy as long as more than 10 firms pool resources.

Litigation is much more expensive than that. Inter Partes Review and early summary judgment on 101 are the cheapest way to go in many circumstances. It is what is happening these days too.

Eh, I think that's an overgeneralization.

Newegg claims to have spent $450,000 on the Macrosolve fight, which was about 4x the troll's initial request, but which also includes a claim against Macrosolve for legal fees. That's also more money than Macrosolve could afford to drop on a fight, basically guaranteeing them a win by outlasting the case. They've worked most of their claims down to summary dismissals or no-prejudice suit drops, so once they got the "take it to the mat" reputation established they stopped having to pay full litigation costs for most of their suits.

Review and summary judgement are definitely cheaper, but even full-litigation expenses are workable. Your accounting just has to include dropped and averted suits.

I think that already exists, in the form of insurance.

Yep. RPX: https://www.rpxcorp.com/.

Current HN title is "Lee Cheng on How Racism Inspired His Battle Against Patent Trolls".

There's nothing about racism in the article. Maybe in the 30-minute keynote video?

In 1994, a non-profit organization that Cheng helped form "filed a lawsuit against the San Francisco Unified School District in Federal Court," recalled Cheng. "This was the first legal windmill that I tilted against, and I've been looking for others ever since."

It's mentioned, but not highlighted. That lawsuit was about racial quotas for admission to the Lowell "magnet school", which is a special high school for academically talented students in the SFUSD system. Chinese students were required to score higher on tests than students of other races to be allowed admittance. Lee was an alum of the school, and was offended by the practice. Here's Lee being interviewed about it in 1995:

"I grew up knowing a lot of racism," said Lee Cheng, 23, a UC Berkeley law student and spokesman for the San Francisco chapter of the Chinese American Democratic Club, the group behind the legal battle.

"I was beaten up as a kid, referred to as a chink, a Chinaman. But in school I was taught that the laws will treat everyone the same, that discrimination was being eliminated.

"Then my friends and I applied to public high school. We discovered that if you are Chinese, you have to do better than anyone else."

http://articles.latimes.com/1995-07-13/news/mn-23543_1_chine...

He makes his feelings even clearer on an even earlier entry to the Wikipedia Talk page about the San Francisco Unified School District:

I'm proud to have gone to a high school whose alumni actually care enough about it to write these wikis. My two cents: the Ho suit should be on both the SFUSD and the Lowell pages. FYI--it won't be the last lawsuit challenging race-based admissions at Lowell. When Ho was organized and filed, I'd just graduated from college. I'm a lawyer now and spoiling to use that degree. The next lawsuit will not result in a settlement. SFUSD racists, make my day.--Lee Cheng '89

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3ASan_Francisco_Unified_S...

I've tremendously admired him for his role in pursuing patent trolls, but hadn't known about this earlier history. Wow! I continue to be impressed.

Thanks for adding all these extra details!

He talks about how experiencing racism during his youth inspired him in the video.

We've reverted the title to that of the article.

Thank you.

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