Patent Trolls Eat Startups First. Here’s What You Can Do About It | Hacker News Reader

Patent Trolls Eat Startups First. Here’s What You Can Do About It

techcrunch.com

25 pointsdave16199 comments

Hire real criminals to threaten the patent trolls?

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/make-patent-trolls...

still leaning towards a bat to the kneecaps..

I see violent responses here (and to patent troll stories in general); I wonder how many small businesses and their hard working founders have been destroyed by patent trolls. If there are even a few per year, I find it interesting that not more actual violence is directed against the lawyers (I do find it truly evil, not just 'a job') / troll owners. I don't know how it is for someone to destroy my company, but if I had worked my ass off for many years building something up, I can only imagine!

Hard working founders should not be so naive and take a good look around before they assume the drivel coming out of their ears is a brilliant idea no one else thought of. When someone who went before the aggrieved founder wants to protect their 'novel' and 'non obvious' ideas and work, it's not cool?

It's a shame patent trolls cannot be prosecuted as organized crime.

Don't pay their lawyers (Cooley LLP) to be your lawyers.

http://www.aarongreenspan.com/writing/essay.html?id=81

As one of the comments on that page points out, the trail of evidence to Cooley is rather weak: some of the Intellectual Ventures companies are registered with an address of "4401 Eastgate Mall" in San Diego, CA, and Google says that Cooley is also associated with that address. That's the sum and total of the evidence presented.

The problem is that a bunch of other law firms also work out of that building: a quick Google reveals that Shepard Mullins (a major firm), Calderon Law Group, etc. So are "Tang Capital Partners", "Sanderling Ventures", etc. If you look at a Google Streetview, there's even a "for lease" sign outside the building [1]. It's clearly a shared office space.

None of this proves that Cooley is _not_ IV's lawyers. But I wouldn't rely on just that address to prove they are.

[1] https://maps.google.com/maps?q=%224401+Eastgate+Mall,+San+Di...

Edit: here's the "FOR LEASE" advertisement for the building -- it's pretty clear that anybody can get a spot in that building (currently 1,750-9,000 sq ft): http://www.utcofficespace.com/4401-eastgate-mall-san-diego-c...

Despite what Google might say, Sheppard Mullin is not in that building.

http://www.sheppardmullin.com/offices-7.html

"Tang Capital Partners, LP is an investment fund that focuses on the life sciences industry," so it's not a law firm.

http://www.streetinsider.com/entities/Tang+Capital

"Sanderling: an investment firm dedicated to building new biomedical companies since 1979," is also not a law firm.

http://www.sanderling.com

The other individuals' names listed by Google appear to be lawyers who work for Cooley LLP. I admit I didn't check them all but I think it's pretty clear what's going on here.

Ethan Christensen - http://www.lawyerdb.org/Lawyer/Ethan-Christensen/

Fred Muto - http://www.cooley.com/mutoft

John Kyle - http://www.cooley.com/jkyle

Joe Leventhal - http://www.cooley.com/65631

Karen E. Hernandez‎ - http://www.cooley.com/65668

Based on this, the sign on the building, and the sign in front of the building, there appears to be one major tenant in the building: Cooley LLP.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com