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Comment by nukeop | Hacker News Reader

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?

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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.

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