Comment by caboteria | Hacker News Reader

Comment by caboteria | Hacker News Reader

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The article gives an example:

> For instance, three years ago, Franklin submitted an application for a startup that needed to secure crucial patents before it filed for public offering. It was being sued by a large company in the same space, and so it paid the Patent Office an extra fee to fast-track the application.

Reading between the lines a little, it looks like a small company with tech that challenged a big company was being hassled by the big company and needed the patents to put them on a favorable-enough legal footing to not interfere with their IPO.

Sure, but I don't get how this helps. Is it just the bigger company will hold off because you now have "ammunition" to also sue them for infringement in a kind of MAD standoff?

The article (and a sibling comment) also mentions investor reasons ("If it’s a startup trying to get traction against an established player, they may not get funding because they don’t get the patent in place,") but I don't understand why that's the case unless it goes back to some kind of signaling that you won't be an easy legal target. I'd think all a patent would show is that you have an idea, which investors would already know and is true regardless of whether the patent is pending or approved.

  Is it just the bigger company will hold off because you now have "ammunition" to also sue them for infringement in a kind of MAD standoff?

That's exactly it.

This is not uncommon.

For example, Yahoo sued Google for patent infringement over Ads right before Google's IPO.

It then sued Facebook for patent infringement right before Facebook's IPO

etc

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