Crowd Source Patent Troll Challenges
There was a lot of positive response on HN to Rackspace challenging the "rotatable screen" patent under a provision of the America Invents Act called the inter partes review. This allows petitioners to ask the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to review whether it is valid.
The inter partes review provision of the law went into effect in September, and petitioners have filed nearly 250 inter partes review requests with the USPTO.
This provides a cost effective method to challenge patent validity while Trolls are stuck in the demand stage (sending out demand letters).
The idea would be to have companies/individuals ("Party") who received demand letters from Trolls to post the same for crowd-source funding until the "goal" is met and then a petition would be filed with the USPTO. This would allow the public to fund the challenges to the most objectionable patents or target specific Trolls who have exhibited the most objectionable behavior.
The "Goal" would have to be determined on a case by case basis, depending on how much the attorney of record estimates, but I would feel comfortable that these petitions could be accomplished for no greater than $150,000 (attorneys fees and costs included). This could also expand to Trademark cancellations, but the clear focus is on the most egregious Patent Trolls.
Thoughts?