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Comment by pnw_hazor | Hacker News Reader

" You hear about the three or four kids in a dorm room who are tinkering around with an idea, then suddenly, they get slammed with one of these completely vague cease-and-desist letters from a place they’ve never heard of, citing patents they didn’t know existed. The threat is: turn over everything you’re doing to us, or pay us $30,000."

Has this ever happened? I don't think so.

Also, it would be nice if the interview included a peppercorn of information about the bills.

WA state has a new anti-patent troll law. It is useless.

edit: link to the bill sponsored by Eric Lesser https://malegislature.gov/Bills/190/S128

edit2: after scanning the bill, it looks like every "mainstream" patent troll would be able to continue to operate without making any changes to their practice. Only the most incompetent lawyers have any chance of triggering the "bad faith" element in this law. (Same as WA state anti-patent troll law.)

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Anecdotal but this has happened in a startup I was in called artwork evolution. We were hit with a lawsuit that asked us to fork over for adding a link to the App Store requesting a review. We ignored them and ended up disbanding before they brought us to court, but the letters were real and they were very scary.

Yes! In 2014 our fintech startup received a cease-and-desist from some London lawyers representing Dealogic. Bogus claims just trying to scare us so our Houston lawyer sent them verbal napalm and warned them against messing with a Texas company and we never heard another peep out of them again.

>Has this ever happened?

Yes.

> I don't think so.

That doesn't make it any less true. What you think and feel have little to do with real facts.

Yes. Revostock, a small business that simply sold After Effects templates by independent artists was shut down by a patent troll:

https://www.redsharknews.com/business/item/1673-opinion-the-...

Yes it does happen. Small startup gets a shakedown when they get into incumbent player market. Been there. Not always but it can be game ending. Not commenting on the quoted anecdote, just my experience and word of mouth from others.

It happens for trademarks too.

Well, yes, but you can change your name and usually avoid having to pay up a large sum.

Three or four guys tinkering in a dorm room? Is what the brilliant Harvard educated young(est) congressman said.

Early stage startups can run into trouble from trolls but if they do not have any money.... Unless the troll files a complaint and actually initiates a lawsuit, the scary letters should be ignored.

Though I do think startup GC's should learn how to handle the initial phases of a patent infringement lawsuit. It isn't that hard -- then it would force the trolls to spin up an expensive full-stack lawsuit if they want to keep going. This is expensive and risky for trolls.

> Has this ever happened? I don't think so.

Sure it does. I've had it happen to two of my ventures. Anecdote is not the singular of data, but I can't imagine it is rare.

That has happened to a lot of small time app developers.

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