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Comment by babarock | Hacker News Reader

To me the real bad news is that I'm scared shitless to develop and commercialize anything now.

No invention is truely innovative, not a single product on the market today is truely original. We're all influenced by the same factors and we're all trying to push the same limits in technology.

I don't have nearly the means to go to court against a company like Apple (or any company at all for that matter). If I launch my product today, I would be afraid of being successful, because I know I'll be bullied by others.

And when patent lawsuits can win you a Billion dollars, patent bullies are happy and waiting for me.

But yeah, I agree patents are a driving force behind innovation...

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I hope this madness in US patents policies gets fixed. But if it doesn't, it could be an opportunity for Europe...

http://blog.hashtagify.me/2011/08/04/european-startups-and-u...

One experiment could be excluding Texas when selling to US. That could take care of most of the patent troll court filings and move you down in their prioritized attack list.

AFAIK yet IANAL, if you have no customers in Texas then a company can't bring you to Texas court.

Unfortunately this does not help with more "legitimate" cases from real software companies.

The 1 billion dollar lawsuit was in California. Ignoring Texas wont help. Software patents is a US problem.

Chances is it will be a driving force in taking innovation elsewhere.

This one was in Cali, but Apple isn't a patent troll (or at least not your traditional, no-products patent troll). Regular run of the mill patent trolls like to file in East Texas.

Voted back up to positive territory. What was with the downvotes? This is informative, and he's right -- Apple might be patent assholes, but they're not patent trolls.

> Apple might be patent assholes, but they're not patent trolls.

That is very nicely put.

Agreed on US problem.

Innovation could be still developed in US, just all the customers must be non-US. I could be wrong but this has been my assumption.

Some of these non-US customers could be selling back to the US customers and if the number of these resellers is huge enough it's much harder to take them down. Highly sci-fi speculation. This sci-fi could be quickly shut down with the US import restrictions.

I would love to see the innovation leave the USA. It is horrible policy that has turned most innovation efforts into stupid legal crap instead of productive enterprises.

But I haven't seen anything about other countries taking advantage of the USA's failing. Is there evidence of that? Where? It would certainly be the wise thing for others to do. We need innovation. If the USA is going to make innovators lives a hell of courtrooms just give us somewhere else to send the innovators and let them create elsewhere. The USA can sit in its self imposed innovation free zone if it wants.

This is an interesting point; but is it feasible with web products? We would need a lawyer here... and the sad truth is that the only real winners here are lawyers.

"I would be afraid of being successful, because I know I'll be bullied by others."

Getting sued for patent infringement is one of those first-world problems I'd love to have, because it means you're big & threatening enough to be worth suing.

Your strategy there, if you're still a startup and don't have a huge legal team, is to get bought by a big company with a huge legal team that would be hurt if the aggressor wins in court. See: Google, YouTube, and the Viacom lawsuit.

"Hey Nostrademons. Great little startup you got going here.

Say what, I'm going to give you a choice. You can either be bankrupted out of existence by this patent troll or I can buy you out for fifty cents on the dollar. You won't lose face, your investors will be bailed out but in effect you've worked your ass off for 2-5 years for what amounts to an above average salary or a generous signing bonus.

Oh and you now have to work for us to develop the idea for another two years, without equity, before your vesting or whatever it is called clause hits."

Sounds like a shit sandwich to me.

Great problem except there goes your leverage for the negotiation

Also shows the effect of patents on the market, the little guys either get bought for cheap or destroyed as soon as they have any sort of success

The point is that the lawsuit is your leverage for the negotiation. The acquirer doesn't want to see you lose the lawsuit any more than you want to lose it, because it would set a precedent that would make their own products infringing. And since they're bigger than you, they have more to lose, and hence more of an incentive to win.

I've long suspected that Google bought YouTube for the lawsuit. If Viacom had won, it would set a legal precedent that would basically make Google's business model illegal. And Viacom would likely have won, suing a tiny 14-person startup. So Google's only option was to buy the lawsuit (and the company along with it), so they could use their own legal defense team to win in court.

I think you're out on a limb a bit with this one. For most people and companies a lawsuit would most likely be considered a liability. Granted that there are exceptions like the YouTube example you propose, but you can't assume the same for every little startup that gets sued.

It isn't so great if as soon as you go earn your living a bully comes and takes what you earned. Yes, when you have nothing before your job, you might see that person walking away with a paycheck and think I wish I could be the target of some bully. Once it happens it ain't so great.

Just term anything you do as a "game", game-mechanics are not patentable.

Game mechanics can't be copyrighted; unfortunately, there is very little that can't be patented.

Source?

Don't really have one. After some more research, apparently its sort of a gray area filled by anecdotes, pithy observations (such as my own), and snow about copyrights and trade-dress.

You do know that lawsuits are based on actual damages right ? So the idea that you would be sued for a billion dollars or a company like Apple would bother with you is ridiculous.

The real ones to worry are the Lodsys of the world who sue you for just less than what it would cost to hire a lawyer e.g. $1000. Those companies serve no purpose and need to be regulated out of existence.

So the idea that you would be sued for a billion dollars or a company like Apple would bother with you is ridiculous.

Unless you're a small German café or something:

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/right-click/apple-threatens-s...

But why let inconvenient facts get between you and your religion?

Religion ? Nice.

Actually the FACT is that a company is required to defend their trademark as a condition of it being granted. Also a cease and desist isn't a lawsuit.

This is well established law.

Clearly you can't be too small for Apple to consider "bothering" with you.

And if this all really about values and not money, as Tim Cook claims, why should it make any difference how big you are?

Apparently there is also another FACT. It is the fact that Apple bothers with you even if you are a small company.

You claimed that the idea of this happening is ridiculous. Yet, they just showed you an example of this happening. I'm having a hard time trying to understand your argument now. Are you claiming the example is invalid or have you changed your argument and now claiming that Apple does that but it is okay for Apple to do that?

If you infringe on Apple's trademark, big or small, you're likely to draw their ire. If you infringe on Apple's patents and you're a small player, you're probably not going to.

Why? Trademarks have to be defended or they can be lost (not 100% accurate, but close enough). You can't say "I'll only sue companies who are bigger than x" when it comes to trademarks and still hold onto them. That isn't the case for patents. You can selectively sue (or not sue at all) and the patents remain valid.

>Actually the FACT is that a company is required to defend their trademark as a condition of it being granted.

Nope.

Great rebuttal. I think I missed your sources though.

> lawsuits are based on actual damages

Not if it goes to a jury, cause apparently they're free to ignore the judges instructions on damages in order to "make sure the message we sent was not just a slap on the wrist... We wanted to make sure it was sufficiently high to be painful, but not unreasonable."

Never mind the fact that it costs money (potentially a lot) to defend yourself, which a single developer most likely will not have. I'm fairly sure a lawyer will expect payment, win or lose.

1 billion dollars for a teenie-weenie software UI implementation detail in a otherwise huge and complex device which is made of thounsands of major and minor components, both software and hardware.

I don't care at what "scale" this was. This is ridiculous and we should not have to accept it.

If it is so "teenie-weenie" why did Samsung insist on breaking the law by copying it? If you don't like the law don't do business here.

It's a civil suit - they're not "breaking the law" since there's no clear right or wrong answer until you get to court.

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