Comment by barkingdog | Hacker News Reader

Comment by barkingdog | Hacker News Reader

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A while back, I did some research into patent trolls, and came across the history of NPE firms that do DPA (defensive patent aggregation), like RPX [0]. What surprised me from a game theoretical perspective was how murky things got. These situations can be tough on entrepreneurs and seem to create space for said entrepreneur to purchase protection in the form of patent aggregation to mitigate against potential devastation caused by this. On one hand, I can see how it can amount to a protection racket. On the other hand, the existence of patents and how they relate to property are pretty complex. This TechCrunch article about RPX does a good job of going into further detail about this, but truth be told, I am even more on the fence after reading this. I agree that patent reform would be necessary to rectify this situation, but in the meantime, I can't think of a better alternative. The cynic inside me can't help but think that business is always it's own kind of war, sadly.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPX_Corporation [1] http://techcrunch.com/2008/11/24/is-rpxs-defensive-patent-ag...

I came from an European country, and the root cause seems pretty clear to me: why defending yourself in court is so damn expensive? In my country, you don't often need an attorney (although for complex cases you certainly do), but even if you do hire an attorney, they cost way, way less. Like $20,000 for a complex case, and it's going to be a team of lawyers.

Also, companies just don't sue each other that often. I don't know why US is different.

I'm reading this thread with a similar wonder: they seem to be blaming everything but the broken legal system.

Google should fix it, East-Texas should fix it, Texas should fix it, donation to legal funds should fix it, insurance should fix it, more campaigning and lobbying should fix it, we should let them fight to the death that will fix it!

Hmhm. Quite :)

Didn't the guy already say it in the video? They tried various times but the system is so broken and rigged that it just won't work. The senate just outright denies any of the reform bills. It's really desperate that one will have to assume by default that there is no recourse other than trying to acquiesce the existence of such absurdity and try to find workarounds, but this is how America is. Don't be surprised.

> I'm reading this thread with a similar wonder: they seem to be blaming everything but the broken legal system.

Except they are blaming the legal system, as you yourself enumerate:

> more campaigning and lobbying should fix it

Campaigning and lobbying are ways of effecting change to the system of laws.

> Campaigning and lobbying are ways of effecting change to the system of laws.

Yes of course they are. But that way those with the biggest army of lobbyists and campaign donations are going to decide what your laws will be. This is part of your problem, not your solution!

Interesting, his case is in their search tool: https://search.rpxcorp.com/lit/txedce-138585-uniloc-v-lamina...

From what I recall, they acquire IP when its from companies in this situation. I'm not a betting person, but I would not be surprised if this situation was a good opportunity for RPX's PR.

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