Taxi Surfer, From Pitch to Lawsuit in Five Days | Hacker News Reader

Taxi Surfer, From Pitch to Lawsuit in Five Days

taxisurfer.com

75 pointsbarrydahlberg47 comments

SO SO stupid (both sides). The original threatening email seems pretty silly. The response, by adopting that tone, making it public, etc., is a big "I DARE YOU" to the lawsuit-happy moron.

The problem is, it's challenging to know just how rich or insane this person is, and they just publicly started bumping chests with him like a drunken teenager. Other than feeling smug, why is it a smart move to make this personal/emotional? Respectfully indicate that you disagree and request that further communication come from a lawyer.

Also, by saying "We don't have a company, we're just a bunch of guys", you've said, "We don't have a corporate veil-- you can sue us DIRECTLY as individuals." Way to expose the jugular.

I think there's a time and a place for public dissemination of emails like this. To take an example, TechCrunch does it all the time - sometimes I think it goes too far (every single internal email AOL sends out), sometimes I think it's appropriate (eg the "snark" email from Moviefone http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/15/snarketing/).

In this case, where there is virtually zero chance of legal proceedings actually resulting, and the protagonist is simply venting / bullying / baiting the recipient, I think publishing an email publicly is a decisive statement that you think they're silly, ridiculous, and should go away (it's also a good read and nice publicity). From a legal perspective, you don't really lose much, if any, ground.

Also, for what it's worth, even if this guy is considering the "corporate veil" (that's a big if), and even if he has a shred of a cause of action (even bigger if) then knowing he's going after individuals is even less appealing that going after a nascent company (much harder to extract money and legal fees from a 22 year old student).

"In this case, where there is virtually zero chance of legal proceedings actually resulting...."

Dunno about NZ's legal system-- you're probably right. In the US, a rich person with an axe to grind could make your life hell. They might gleefully spend $20k to teach some snotty kids a lesson, even if they knew they would lose. Meanwhile, the kids are maxing out credit cards to cover the cost of their out-of-his-league lawyer and are horribly distracted from actually building stuff.

Even the spectre of a lawsuit could scuttle fundraising hope. Investors don't want to touch people with enemies. If you had early acquisition interest, what happens in the reps and warranties phase when you disclose that there MIGHT be a lawsuit on the horizon? Could it scare a suitor off?

All this for 5-10k pageviews on your blog, tops?

It's exactly the same in NZ - if you have money, you can make somebody's life hell even without a trace of wrongdoing on their part.

NZ does have a major point of difference from the US - the courts will often "award" the costs of the case from a successful defendant to the originator.

This tends to discourage abuse of the legal system for intimidation, as there is a risk it will backfire on you and you will end up paying for all lawyers involved.

It's a much smaller risk to the side with money. If you didn't have that much money to begin with, you may not even be able to afford defense, or you have to rack up huge lawyer bills for an uncertain outcome. And in the case of companies you can't even represent yourself, you have to have a lawyer. Also, awarding costs may or may not happen and is separate from the outcome of the case. So it might discourage _some_ abuse, but not much.

I searched the letter, and can't find the word "patent" anywhere. Unless there is a patent involved, then the wannabe plaintif is relying on "Trade Secrets" (NDA), rather than patents to protect his turf, I'm pretty sure you can politely tell him to fuck off. (IANAL, this is not legal advice).

I've heard that under certain circumstances, you can write a threatening letters, just to rattle the competition. Best get a lawyer to do it, as it sounds slightly credible, and they can make sure you don't actually do anything illegal, but you can often just quote legislation and "request" people back off ... it's just a request, right? The FBI did this to wikipedia, whose legal team sent a hilarious reply.

It's an extremely bad idea if you have a patent they are infringing on (as direct threats will force them to counter-sue, or settle immediately, or face extra damages), but for most things you can talk as much legal smack-down as you want.

Actually, in Australia and NZ (not sure on the situation in the US and elsewhere), empty threats to sue to enforce intellectual property rights are illegal (I am an Australian law graduate, not practising, this is not legal advice).

It's sad that folks like this seem to think that threatening to sue at the drop of a hat is a perfectly acceptable business tactic. It's especially sad in a case like this when the intellectual 'property' (it's so ephemeral in this situation that quotes are needed) concerned involves an idea that almost everyone who has thought about location-based services has had. (No offence to Andrew and the team, they seem to have actually executed it and executed it well).

We had the same adventure with a small dating product we launched in Feb: SecretPoke.com (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2179649).

3 days after launch, we received a cease and desist letter from SecretementVotre (secretly yours, in french) asking us to basically close the service : http://www.businessinsider.com/secretpoke-secretementvotre-2...

We had more fun than fear, and actually blogged about it. Even playing off with the title: SecretementVotre wants to screw up SecretPoke.

Ideas are a dime a dozen, execution is everything. At any given time, 10+ people around the globe are thinking about the same revolutionizing ideas... The only difference between France and the US is that you cannot "protect" an idea in France... so nothing happened.

>The only difference between France and the US is that you cannot "protect" an idea in France... so nothing happened.

What do you mean by this?

Patents are available in nearly every country and equally for anyone in most jurisdictions; they protect [against others implementations of] your ideas.

Did I miscomprehend you?

Don't think you did :)

In France, you cannot protect a business concept / process / idea. You can patent code, protect IP, logos, ... but not a concept. I'm no lawyer, of course, and any lawyer would find counter arguments. But all in all, you cannot.

For instance, this [http://mashable.com/2010/06/17/amazon-patents-social-network...] or maybe that [http://www.zdnet.com/news/facebook-wins-patent-for-location-...] would not be accepted. You would have to IP the code itself, the methods, the technology. And if someone did the same thing differently, you would not be able to attack or C&D them.

There are software patents in Europe, but it's complicated. I don't know about the French office per se but you can get a patent from the EPO that nominally covers France. (Though you would then end up fighting for it in France unless EPLA has gone through).

The EPO's technical board of appeal have passed both business method and software patents, FWIW. See eg http://www.epo.org/news-issues/issues/computers/software.htm....

The important distinction used to be in where the so called "technical effect" lay but I know the law has moved on somewhat since I was familiar with it (Macrossan + Aerotel, EPLA?, etc.).

Your 2 specific citations look to be sound examples of the sort of thing that is patentable in the US (or was) but not in Europe. However with these things covering the ground necessary to inhibit a competitor can be just a matter of [very clever] drafting.

Incidentally, one big company actually claims to have a patent on "secret admiring". I wonder how this will play out.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/11/jdate-slaps-zoosk-okcupid-a...

What gets me on stuff like this is that for every one person who executes successfully and make something great there are hundreds of people waiting around to suckle off of that success.

Welcome to the history of human civilization.

Dumb people say dumb things. A few months ago I got an email demanding that I cease and desist from infringing on the author's patent application.

Just file it in the loony bin and move on.

+1 for "dumb people say dumb things". Unless you realize this when participating in internet citizenry you'll likely fall into the trap of saying equally dumb things.

Works for all citizenry, not just the internet.

If I posted all the vague legal threats I've gotten over the Internet over the years I could come close to filling up the front page of HN. Only one ever came to any sort of legal action - a case was filed and then dropped a few months later without further comment.

The appropriate response when dealing with folks that both don't have a lawyer and don't seem to have a case is to tell them to serve you and forget about it. They'll be forced to seek counsel, who will most likely explain to them the error of their ways. It's the kind of thing that doesn't work well when coming from you, for obvious social reasons.

https://xkcd.com/386/

Is it sad that I recognize that xkcd id?

"People have to realise that an idea is worth nothing. A good idea with great execution has value, but without this execution, it’s worthless. Getting an estimate for execution of an idea in 2009 does not grant you ownership of it."

Bang on target!!

The whole idea of good or bad depends entirely upon the concept of value. Saying a 'good' idea is 'worthless' (ie. no value) is a contradiction in terms.

An "idea" in the context of "great execution" can have good or negative value.

An idea that's not taken in the context of "great execution" cannot be good or bad in absolute terms, since that can only be seen after it is implemented. This is how it works -- people only have hunches that this idea, implemented for this particular demographic, combined with this other idea, delivered just in time for this upcoming conference, might just work; but you can't really say for sure, and truth is, it's like a lottery ticket.

Expanding on that -- the idea of buying a lottery ticket is great when you win, it's bad when you lose or don't follow through with the plan (which happens in more than 99.99% of the cases). Based on that, the idea by itself is worthless, as it depends on actually buying the ticket (implementation) + timing (which affects your winnings) + lots and lots of luck. Thus buying a lottery ticket is bad for most people (as they lose time and money), but great for a few lucky individuals -- and that's how it is with startups in general.

You're jumping the gun. The good ideas tend to be the ones which people bother to implement. You don't just pick an idea at random and go for it.

If you want to say 'the true value of many ideas which startups are based upon cannot be determined very easily due to conflation with other variables (luck, timing, expertise, effort)' then fine, but just say that (though that is hardly a problem exclusive to measuring the worth of ideas). What I object to is this 'good ideas are worthless' doublespeak which butchers logic and the English language.

First, you should reread what I said -- no, you don't pick an idea at random, and ideas can have a negative impact on your product (it's right there, in my comment).

    'good ideas are worthless' doublespeak which 
    butchers logic and the English language.

The article says:

    People have to realise that an idea is worth 
    nothing. A good idea with great execution has
    value, but without this execution, it’s worthless.

And it is the truth, simply because ideas cannot be classified as good or bad until the implementation happens. You can't call someone out for stealing your idea, if you're sitting on in from 2009, and not doing anything about -- in this context, the idea is worthless.

If you don't think it is -- try having a "good idea" and then sell it.

You don't pick ideas at random, but then you can't classify them as good or bad either? So how do you pick them?? Random also matches up with your lottery analogy.

The logic of the article's statement is still flawed anyway.

    A good idea [without great execution] [is] worthless.

    A good idea is worthless.

^ That's what the sentence reduces to, and it's nonsense. And talking about selling is a massive oversimplification of the issue.

IMHO, that's not a possible reduction -- things have value with context attached (what is value anyway without context?). And if evaluated by boolean algebra, it also doesn't compile as ... second statement implies first statement, but not the other way around, unless first statement is false ;)

Sure, a value must be rooted in another concept, ie. it must be a value to someone (ultimately they'd judge it in the context of does it improve their life, although a whole chain of other values may be necessary to reach that point), but so in turn must value judgements such as 'good' or 'bad' be in the context of value. (Which was my original point.)

For instance we have images of far away galaxies that don't exist anymore, you certainly cannot sell one of them and they have no value to us - so it would be ridiculous to talk about faraway nonexistant galaxies being good or bad.

Broadcast.com? Myspace?

Don't know about broadcast.com, but Myspace had great value in the beginning. They were fast to market and definitely delivered something people wanted.

Their problem was and is their inability to evolve.

Gee, who would've guessed this would turn into a philosophical discussion.

I wonder how many people who say ideas are worth nothing would be willing to publish every business idea of theirs as soon as they conceive it, before they get a chance to be the first to execute it?

check out: http://sivers.org/multiply

"Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference" -Mark Twain

This exact thing has been done quite a while ago, and it even looks very similar of course – http://www.mytaxi.net/

"Quite a while ago" seems to be October 2010 :-)

And German cities probably aren't the best place to launch such a venture. I'm not sure about Bonn and Stuttgart, but the rest definitely have good public transit. Your potential audience is seriously limited compared to, say, a city like LA.

tbh I didn't remember when exactly it launched. I agree that Germany might not be an obvious market because public transportation tends to be pretty good. Except after midnight on weekdays, or sometimes on the weekend, or when you want to go somewhere quickly, or with a group of people :)

Also, people obviously do use taxis even in Germany, and myTaxi replaces the middleman (taxi dispatchers) and replaces them with tech, so they can take a smaller cut, and claim to be impartial. Taxi drivers seem particularly disgruntled with dispatchers in Hamburg and Berlin and are happy about myTaxi giving them back some control – and more of the profit.

These guys won the Auckland Startup Weekend down here in NZ at the start of the week, it's been entertaining viewing since.

Gah, why do i never seem to hear about these events... -1 for living in Palmerston North i guess. Is there some website or newsletter where these events get published and promoted?

Hopefully the childish behavior on both sides doesn't reflect poorly on Kiwis as a whole -_-

Try signing up for NZ events at http://startupdigest.com/, they are doing a decent job of keeping us updated at the moment.

Interesting. Sounds like he doesn't have a patent, no one at the other firm has ever had any contact with him, the idea is so obvious there are many companies with similar apps, and it's a conflict that crosses international borders and would cost an absolute fortune to pursue legally.

I'm a little leery of this: People have to realise that an idea is worth nothing.

An idea is worth nothing in the sense that an idea can't make money by itself. There are still such things as better and worse ideas, and "your idea is worthless, so it's not stealing for me to use your idea" (a la http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2235218) feels like a pretty slimy use of the phrase.

"You aren't the only one who can have good ideas, and you don't own an idea just because you had it first" seems like a much less judgmental way to say this.

Funny thing is this sort of application was my first idea for iOS as soon as v 2.0 was released. It seems a natural use case for a location aware device. I just knew I didn't have the resources to properly execute it.

I wonder if that was his actual response to the email. While I think it's a great tone of voice for a blog (I loved it), I think there is a way to mitigate that situation and have you come out even better than you were before. Encourage them to build out their products and do it better than you. They will either fail to deliver and you've eliminated a competitor, or you can use his struggles to compete as ideas to generate if he happens to think of neat features you could implement as well. Never try to close doors you couldn't learn from by keeping open and exploring.

Link to the actual post: http://taxisurfer.com/blog/2011/04/from-pitch-to-lawsuit-in-...

Followup post can be found here: http://taxisurfer.com/blog/2011/04/our-cd-friend-is-persiste...

While the C&D likely had no merit, the snarky and insulting response was just as unnecessary. There was a mature and professional way to blow the guy's email off.

Making this public makes Taxi Surfer look worse than the guy threatening to sue them.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com