Clicker Heroes maker compares new lawsuit from “patent troll” to extortion | Hacker News Reader

Clicker Heroes maker compares new lawsuit from “patent troll” to extortion

arstechnica.com

94 pointsWayneSmallman30 comments

This case was discussed on HN a few days ago, and from the comments there it seems there may be prior art from a 1997 MUD, which has been previously used to defend against similar patents: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16505568

Does the USPTO have any route for third parties to proactively invalidate patents or somehow trigger their reinspection other than during actual litigation? (Maybe an open group to prioritise patents and pursue this could get crowdfunding?)

We need to really make it painful to be a patent troll. Allow companies to band together and accuse a company for being a patent troll (list of patents as evidence and evidence of the ideas having existed prior to patent filings), if proven then their patents should be disbanded and the company fined. At the very least allow companies to band together to have invalid obscure patents from unknown companies that DO NOT EVEN INNOVATE taken down and voided.

Edit:

Once a patent has been proven invalid, it should be possible to sue for damages from being forced to pay the patent troll.

The first thing that came to mind was a new brand of patent troll companies that seek to invalidate a smaller company's patent by "proving" it invalid.

What does the "new brand of patent troll companies" gain from this? Patent trolls exist today because of the monetary gain, why would those exist for no monetary gain?

You're telling me that you can't envision a situation where Big Company A holds patents worth billions, and Big Company B wouldn't pay money to see those patents invalidated?

You're telling me that you can't envision a situation where Big Company B could spend millions (instead of billions) in an attempt to bring down such patents and, even if it loses, consider it just a risky bet at best?

Why couldn't Big Company B just do that themselves already?

The bigger patent troll company would have to prove it has been patent trolled by the smaller company though? If the smaller company has never even contacted the bigger one, how is there any shred of a patent abuse violation?

We really need to fund USPTO better so some of these never get passed in the first place. I also think limiting the lifetime of "tech" patents removes most of this. Troll attacks must come very very quickly instead of just buying them up when start-ups go out of business for pennies so they can charge to "license" their pile of crap.

I wish patents had to argue how much work it would take a peer in the industry replicate their work.

A pharmaceutical company could argue that another company would have to spend millions on research just like they did. A tech company would argue that a talented 15 year old would need at least a day to duplicate their work. Give one a 20 year patent and the other a 1 year patent.

$35k is a number that sends a message. To me this message says "I dont really have a serious case. Let's keep things simple, you settle out of court and send me whatever you can afford" If someone sent me this sort of lawsuit I wouldn't even waste time replying

"Predatory ‘patent trolls’ could soon find it harder to operate in the United States. Legislation to curb frivolous patent lawsuits has regained momentum after lawmakers in the US Senate added a provision to stop university patent holders from being penalized along with the trolls." ( https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/congress-seeks-to... ).

If there was a method to fight such abusive patent trolls, I would immediately donate!

It is the exploitation of a bug in the government source code, and it should be fixed..

https://www.thepatentscam.com/help

Stories like this get a lot of people here (including myself) really angry with a lot of people even asking for places to donate to support fighting these trolls.

In today's world of decentralized currencies and programmable wallets can there be a fund that people like us can donate to and that programmatically gets unlocked when the majority of the community agrees that a case is one of patent trolling.

Could there be a "proof of troll" ?

Have other microtransaction-based product developers heard from this patent troll? Curious how they handled it

What is the risk of just ignoring this letter altogether? Surely it would not hold in any court of law due to overwhelming number of examples of prior art, widespread use, and vague wording of the patent?

The issue is that this is asymmetric warfare. It's "cheap" for the patent troll to engage in countless procedures, each of which costs you the case if you fail, whereas it costs the defendant tens of thousands of dollars each time.

It sounds like what's missing is a bad faith mechanic. Assuming it could be implemented in a way that's not terrible or outright ineffective, it would be interesting to see a legal framework for barring a party from filing patent suits if they accumulate enough verdicts that rule their case to be outrageous enough to earn them a black spot.

It exists in some/many/dunno European jurisdictions. If the claim fails in court, the party that lost will pay for all legal expenses (up to a limit). You still need money to defend yourself, but you'll get them back once the case is thrown out/won.

As a rule you won't actually get back all the expenses if the case takes a (few) year(s), it's more a symbolic amount.

I think the term you are looking for is "Vexatious litigant" [0]. People who are declared as such by a court must apply for permission (which is rarely given) before launching any court cases.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vexatious_litigation

OTOH patent trolls generally rely on victims preferring to quickly settle for moderate sums, they're not usually built for losing cases.

IIRC Newegg's refuses to ever settle[0], and when patent trolls find out and try to drop it[1] Newegg sues right back[2].

You do need a motivated lawyer/legal department with institutional support though.

[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-scotus-newegg-soverain/u-...

[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/01/patent-troll-rea...

[2] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/01/newegg-sues-pate...

Yes, but that's hardly contradictory.

The entire strategy of patent trolls is to go after targets for whom the costs of defense are disproportionately (read: prohibitively) larger than the costs of offense.

It isn't countless procedures, there are standard rules of civil procedure, which are not countless. And they are balanced - if you counter sue for legal costs, you get to play the same game, and you also have actions you can take under the rules of civil procedures to which the trolls must also respond or lose the case.

Also, there is no lawsuit here. This is a letter. The harm of ignoring a letter is simply a matter of risk management. But in short, no suit, no foul.

I have literally said this a dozen times on HN. Learn the law enough to not get bullied.

The point is that the procedures are disproportionately burdensome for one party.

This is self-evident and documented to the point that it's absurd even to be discussing that point. Knowing the law is literally complex enough to warrant its own profession, but even so, the operational aspects of filing legal documents are prohibitively time-consuming for small businesses.

If a patent has been found invalid - can previous lawsuits that awarded damages to the patent troll be invalidated? This might make it far more dangerous for a troll to go to court.

Wouldn't that make it dangerous to own and enforce patents in the first place?

Yes, if they were on the edge of validity.

I thought patents weren't valid if it was just a normal thing done in the real world "with a computer".

Isn't the patent essentially "money - with a computer".

Yes, that's exactly what the response letter (https://d1snsxh2hr65cz.cloudfront.net/docs/2018-03-01+Bombac...) says.

I don't get how patents like these are allowed through in the first place. Seems like the US patent system needs a big overhaul.

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