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Comment by criddell | Hacker News Reader

Every eink thread states this without any specifics.

Calling them patent trolls seems especially weird since since the Eink company actually produces a lot of stuff.

There's good reason to believe that the technology is simply expensive and hard to manufacture, not that there's some giant conspiracy of patent trolls. And the use of "troll" here, when there's actually a product that's being made, is inaccurate. "Trolls" are companies that buy up dubious patents, don't actually make or invent anything, and sue everyone and hope that they settle instead of challenging the patent in court.

Every new generation of LCD and OLED has plenty of patents, and there are affordable products eventually. OLED in particular started out very expensive and now is everywhere.

E-Ink is just tough.

While "patent troll" might be inaccurate they pretty much stifled the technology development for a decade

Calling companies that hold a patent you find valuable and aren't distributing it's use how you personally see fit a "patent troll" isn't just inaccurate, it's an intentional mischaracterization for the purpose of eliciting a negative emotional response solely to spread your narrative. It cheapens the meaning and lowers any engagement to fight for the same cause when you realize it's a facade driven entirely by sour grapes and a lack of understanding of the patent system being criticized.

I guess it's okay here though, because [passionate story about side project idea using eink that could be tinkered on but never actually idealized into something].

That is essentially the entire idea behind patents. They get a limited time of control, the public benefits later. Like it or not, this is how the system is supposed to work.

That's the problem. It is not working. It's great for big companies to stop their competitors, but not for actual innovation.

"I don't like how the system works" and "I blame this company for working in the system" aren't really the same point though.

If the real problem is the first one, then implicitly there is a need to propose something that works better. And that is no obvious (but it's obviously not simple).

That's bullshit though. People always make this claim but never with evidence or a source, or they provide a source that has either been retracted or simply states the same claim without evidence or citation.

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