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Comment by akeefer | Hacker News Reader

Software patents affect small companies when they get sued by big companies or patent trolls. It happens all the time, and when it does there's basically no defense unless you have a huge patent portfolio and can countersue . . . which, if you're a small company or the other side is a patent troll, you can't do.

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Maybe it happens, but I've never seen it happen in my career. I'm sure it does, but its pretty rare. And I've never seen any startup make a technology decision based on existing patents.

I have been involved in patent litigation for many large companies, in a defensive role. And while some do blatantly violate patents, they generally go out of their way to work around the patent.

And there are some oft-requested features that don't exist in very popular products that don't exist solely due to patents.

And even patent trolls attack large companies more.

I just don't think that if you're a startup company you have much rational reason to care about patents. And if you do fear them, I suspect you'll likely fail due to that fact I doubt you're very rational.

May be because big companies have the deep pocket so they are the target of patent lawsuit? For small companies, software patent has the chilling effect in prevent them in doing certain things.

For what it's worth, it's happened to my company (a smaller company sued by a larger competitor), and the litigation has dragged on for almost three years now without going to trial.

I've heard of other similar incidents as well. They're far more likely if you're going into an existing market against well-funded (and shameless) incumbents than it is if you're in a nice market.

You're correct that the rational response is to not worry about it, simply because there's nothing you can do about it as a software startup. If someone wants to sue you, they will, no matter how far you go out of your way to avoid violating patents. So you just kind of hope you don't get unlucky and get sued before the company becomes big enough to file their own patents for defensive purposes.

Just because something happens infrequently doesn't mean it's not a real problem.

What was your company? I'd love to know this history. I've just never seen it happen that a large company files suit against a small startup. The closest thing is something like MS vs SalesForce, but SalesForce is hardly a small company.

Again, I'm not saying it doesn't happen at all. But so do random bits flipping due to cosmic rays, but I don't think we should change how we write code due to it. Something are sufficiently rare that they're not worth spending much time on.

I don't think we should change how we write code, either: I think we should change the patent system so this stuff doesn't happen. I get tired of hearing the "it's just big companies suing other big companies" argument about why patents aren't a problem. Software patents generally don't stifle innovation because people don't do something because they're worried about patents: they stifle innovation by diverting huge financial and mental resources to patent lawsuits (and patent filing) that could otherwise go to product development or something else useful, and occasionally by crippling companies that aren't large enough to defend themselves. It's just kind of tax on the industry as a whole where the net effect is to siphon money and energy away from important things and towards lawyers. You'd have approximately the same effect if you replaced the patent system with roving bands of feral lawyers that went around randomly destroying property and burning down offices. You wouldn't say, "Hmm, I don't think I'll write software because some lawyer might burn my house down," but dealing with all that destruction would drain resources from other areas, and sometimes it would be too much for a company to overcome.

I can't really get into any specifics of the litigation because it's still ongoing.

http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4068478/Mentor-EVE-s...

If you're going make a decision based on existing patents, the only possible decision is "don't go into the software business." Hard to say how often it happens.

Except that it rarely, if ever, happens. It's a waste of money to sue companies who aren't a threat or can't pay you. Look at who gets sued: Google, Apple, HTC, Microsoft. Look at who doesn't: Y Combinator and TechStars companies.

Just wait a few years. As you say, it's a waste of money to sue someone who's not a threat. Once one of those companies becomes a threat to someone with deep pockets (and some of them will), there's a fairly high likelihood that someone will sue them.

Or do what most companies do, buy them.

First rule of litigation - sue people who have money.

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