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Comment by reginaldjcooper | Hacker News Reader

Would the US actually be able to enforce a court decision beyond injunction against a foreign business located abroad?

Doubtful, unless there is some sort of agreement with the host country. But that wouldn't necessarily stop the troll because if that company ever wanted to expand into the US, which is still a big market, then they'll have to deal with the troll sooner or later.

I would abandon the US market until I had the funding to fight trolls or they get responsible legislation going. Once foreign corp. X have got the funding I don't know what would stop a mysterious new US corp. Z from buying access to the X userbase and APIs with the express purpose of doing the exact same thing as X but domestically. And then, once the patent business has been cleared up, merge them. It might have to be as convoluted as X -> unsullied foreign corp. Y -> Z to launder the relationship but I bet it's possible.

France and Germany do it all the time against Google/MS.

Google and Microsoft have local offices and funds in France and Germany. That makes them soft targets.

A troll is unlikely to go to the effort to chase a foreign company with no local presence. They'd probably have to go after your customers one by one if they could find some way to even identify them.

Which is true, but then most international corporations, in other words the ones with money, tend to have local offices in country's with big markets.

But, you have to think long term, you sue the company with no local presence. If the court goes along with it and you win then that company will have problems waiting for it if an attempt is ever made to incorporate within the country.

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