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Comment by kintamanimatt | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure why one should be optimistic. Even if they win, they've lost; the legal costs alone are silly and aren't paid for by the loser.

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Even if they win, they've lost; the legal costs alone are silly and aren't paid for by the loser.

You could have said the exact same thing when they first went to court and it would have been just as true. But that's why they are doing it. They already lost simply by operating in a country with such broken patents.

No. Even if they lose, they've won.

The whole point of their strategy is to discourage the next patent troll from trying to shake them down. Even if they lose this case, they will have continued to demonstrate that they are no push over.

If you don't stand up to a bully, then you will always be the victim of bullies.

I would imagine some patent trolls think twice about going after Newegg because they will fight. Fighting in court is not what a patent troll wants, they want the easy victim that will surrender easily.

Because if they go to court, not only does it cost them money but it could cost them their patent. It's better to go after an easier target.

It's why Wal-Mart was known for fighting all lawsuits back in the day. Because after the first time you settle with someone that "slipped" in the aisles you will suddenly find that someone "slips" in your stores nearly every day.

Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of respect for Newegg and what they're doing to this patent troll. This is also the exact strategy I'd take in this same situation if dealing with a patent troll, but nevertheless it's a horrible waste of time and money that could be better placed elsewhere.

I cannot disagree with you on that.

If they won a previous case on appeal, and as micahgoulart observes didn't use a potentially valuable witness in this case. This suggests a strategy of bleeding out the patent trolls through their lawyers.

A troll's business model relies mostly on settlements, newegg can just keep selling computers.

> This suggests a strategy of bleeding out the patent trolls through their lawyers.

I was depressed when I read the verdict, but your point here gives me new hope. I hadn't thought about that.

I wonder if they're going to hold back on their witnesses then for the appeals process as a sort of "ace in the hole?" I further have to wonder if the reason they decided not to use that witness was because they suspected they were going to lose this case and have to appeal?

I can only hope that the appeals process ends up invalidating this patent.

The chief legal officer of Newegg _wants_ these cases and to take them to completion in attempts to correct the problems with software patents. One should be optimistic because Newegg is putting up the good fight and winning rather often. If it were almost any other company, you'd be hearing about a settlement if you heard anything at all. As a Newegg customer, I am glad that some of my dollars are going towards these kinds of legal costs and that's the type of thing that comes to mind when making decisions about where to buy.

Some more information about previous cases:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/05/newegg-nukes-corp...

this is the sole reason i rather buy from them instead of amazon. before those cases, i steered clear of newegg as i do of any merchant that bores me with coupons and rebates.

This is an excellent point! I hope everyone who cares about this issue is doing their part and voting with their dollars. Yes, donate to EFF, write to your congresscritter/senator, but also reward the business that invests money in causes that you care about. Sure, they are doing it to benefit their bottomline, but they could just as easily have paid that money to make the problem go away like so many other businesses did.

Newegg has been my exclusive source of tech goods since they started standing up to trolls. I intend to keep rewarding them with my repeat business.

Thank you for the reminder. I've been a long-time customer of them, but I had forgotten that this was one of the reasons. (How embarassing to admit that.) Even while reading this, my thoughts were, "Man, I'm glad Newegg is so awesome" -- rather than "I am glad I am spending my money there". Now I'm glad of both. ;)

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