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Comment by AlbertCory | Hacker News Reader

For reference: [1] shows the currently-free RECAP ("PACER" spelled backwards) listing for the Elizabeth Holmes / Theranos trial.

The way this works is: you install a Chrome extension which automatically uploads anything you get from PACER into a free archive.

How are they funded? I expect they're a 501(c)(3). So it's not a question of whether PACER can be free; it already is, partially.

As for patents: Google used to host all the patent files for free, and then someone complained that that gave them an unfair advantage (note: but what???), so now someone else hosts them for free.

So I don't think finding the funding is really much of an issue nowadays.

[1] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/7185174/united-states-v...

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The unfair advantage, I suspect, may have been that Google could look to see which patents were popular, or which ones were popular at a particular company, or which ones were becoming popular at a particular university. They already have that unfair advantage when it comes to search traffic, but reading a patent can expose you to treble damages for willful infringement.

Yeah, no. I was in Google Patent Litigation. "Treble damages" is just something lawyers like to use to scare the engineers with.

Besides the "treble damages" urban legend (more on that below):

* G was putting the patents online as soon as the PTO made them available. There was no delay so G could mine them for those nuggets of valuable IP.

* There are no nuggets of valuable IP to be mined in patents.

* Even if there were, ideas are a dime a dozen. It's execution that matters.

* "Treble damages":

  * first of all, the plaintiff hires a "damages expert" to calculate a good number to ask for. These people make a lot of money. "Willfulness" as in "engineer reading a patent" does not even enter into it.

  * secondly, "willfulness" comes from the plaintiff writing a formal letter to the defendant informing them of the patent, and asking them to take a license. It's always from discussions with their lawyers, or maybe someone talking about it on email.

  * ask yourself: if it *were* from engineers *reading* a patent, how would they even know? From their own web logs? How would they know who at the defendant's company was reading it? Wouldn't that be obscured by the defendant's internet interface?

To anyone else who's reading this thread later on, you should be aware that my comprehensive, factual rebuttal, full of citations to caselaw, law-review articles, and statute, demonstrating the egregious falsehood of the parent comment, has been "flagged" and so is not visible by default; it's at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29505838, and you can see it by signing up for an HN account and turning on the "showdead" setting in your profile.

Please, please do not base your strategy for dealing with patents on the dangerous falsehoods "AlbertCory" is spreading here. It could destroy your company or your career. Don't be fooled by his claims to expertise. Don't take my word for it either. Read the law review article I recommended in my other comment, written by two of the top patent litigators in the world: https://btlj.org/data/articles2015/vol18/18_4/18-berkeley-te...

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