Poll: Do you pay a patent troll?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2809951

by enduser • 15 years ago

27 23 15 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

rexreed3• 15 years ago

You should also ask if you are being threatened by a patent troll. Paying the license fee is the last resort, really.

gcb2• 15 years ago

Patents cover implementations right? EFF should put up a random obfuscated legalese letter generator that says basically "all the code claimed, but not acknowledged, to be offending the patent mentioned has been removed. If you sign this obfuscated, random, draconian non-compete non-disclosure agreement, we will allow you to visit our offices and inspect the code for any real patent offense"

that should take care of most of the small trolls that affect companies just starting up.

didn't vote as i never went trhu this.

gcb2• 15 years ago

ops, just voted now with a misclick on NO

akeefer2• 15 years ago

Software patents effectively cover features rather than implementations, so a patent troll (or a judge or jury) doesn't need to look at your source code to determine if you violated their patent: they really just need to be able to use the application enough to determine what it does.

Of course, the issue of if you violated the patent or not, or if you removed any offending source code, is pretty much immaterial to the patent lawsuit issue; they can sue you either way, and if they want to take it to court, you'll have to pay a truckload of money to defend yourself, unless you want a summary judgment issued against you.

cperciva2• 15 years ago

Software patents effectively cover features rather than implementations

No, software patents cover ways to implement features. Amazon does not have a patent on "buying something with one click"; the patent deals with one specific way to let people buy something with one click (I'm guessing cookies and stored shipping preferences? I've never read the patent in question).

if they want to take it to court, you'll have to pay a truckload of money to defend yourself

Sure, but this is independent of the subject matter of the claim. In the US you can sue anyone for anything and it will cost a lot of money for them to defend themselves; witness the "90 year old without a computer illegally downloaded porn movies" copyright suits, for instance.

delinka• 15 years ago

I'm not sure I understand your initial question. A feature of an app can infringe a patent (e.g. In-app Purchase), therefore removing the feature removes the infringement. The code implementing the feature is irrelevant to the patent owner.

Let's suppose you've implemented in-app purchase in a way that infringes a patent. If this feature is simply hidden in the app and not accessible by a user, but the code is still compiled into the app, then the app is no longer infringing. In other words, just because my app links against a library (Apple's?) that implements your patented thingy, my app is not in a de facto infringing state.

ryanlchan• 15 years ago

Bit of a chicken and egg question, isn't it?

IP trolls only really come after you once you have enough success to be worth suing. The value that IV gets is from a license or a settlement, both of which require money. And to have money, you have to have... success.

Why didn't Android get sued before being bought by Google? Because no one cared.

The time to start thinking about licensing from a troll is the minute you think you have enough to defend yourself against one.

SwellJoe• 15 years ago

I have never worked on a project that did not include numerous patented technologies, and neither has anyone else here with more than a couple years of experience. It is only by luck that I have never been sued or extorted into paying licensing fees; and that's true of anyone working in software.

It is simply impossible to write software of any size and complexity that doesn't include ideas that have been patented, often being covered by several patents.

As companies like IV grow, and prove that the patent troll model is legalized extortion for companies with enough money to buy patent portfolios, the number of people who can answer "no" to this question will dwindle to nothing. Patent trolling, as Myhrvold claims, is new. There aren't a lot of companies doing it yet...but, all that money is an awful big lure, and even people who don't seem evil (like Myhrvold probably seemed to people who knew him in the past, and as I would have assumed before IV was founded) can fall prey to the desire to legally practice extortion.

adrianwaj2• 15 years ago

Just as some people setup companies in the Cayman Islands to avoid taxes (Tax Havens).. are there Patent Haven countries?

Also, if you patent 1 feature, can someone else troll you on a subsection of it? eg troll comes after you on a rotating car door handle, what happens if you prior or subsequently patent on a total car ergonomic system? What happens if you patent a rotating door handle in another country?

jcromartie• 15 years ago

There is this rather patent-troll-friendly court in Texas: http://www.txed.uscourts.gov/

It is incredibly overrepresented in patent litigation. Companies set up PO boxes and shell companies there just for this purpose.

makaio• 15 years ago

What gives courts in East Texas the jurisdiction to hear these cases, anyway? If it were possible to prevent users in these districts from accessing your online service (either using geolocation of some sort or through an EULA), would that make any difference?

enjalot2• 15 years ago

someone should DDoS the court with other types of civil litigation.

enjalot2• 15 years ago

I don't think it would work to have a Patent Haven, because the patents would block usage in the U.S. I suppose if everything was hosted in that other country, but what about payments?

rexreed3• 15 years ago

Not if you want to do business in the United States. Even if your home jurisdiction is patent-friendly (or lax), doing business in the US means complying with, and therefore being liable to, any patent enforcement. A US company can't sue a non-US company if there isn't any US-based infringement, but if you do business in the US, then they can sue you for infringement in the US, no matter where you are based.

abcd_f• 15 years ago

What does "doing business in the US" mean exactly? If my servers are in Peru and someone from Texas signs up to use my webserver monitoring service, I am not exactly doing business in the US, am I? I understand if I ship something tangible to the US customers, but with digital goods or services I frankly cannot think of a situation that would reasonably qualify as in-the-US business. All those US customers come to me, not the other way around, so technically the business is being done in Peru.

rjd• 15 years ago

Nope I live in the real world where software patents don't exist ;) I won't vote however as it will skew your results.

I deal with web, mostly glorified CRUD, on an MS stack. I seriously doubt Im infringing on anything from my own work, I might be good... but I'm not that good :P

Where I have in the stack I'll use MS as a buffer, its amongst the reasons why I choose to go with them. Support, community, my own history amongst others.

Poll: Do you pay a patent troll?

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