Don't mess with Newegg

http://blog.newegg.com/patent-trolls-learn-mess-newegg/?cm_mmc=SNC-Facebook-_-SS-_-Blog-_-NA

by keerthiko • 12 years ago

1469 190 12 years ago

blog.newegg.com

hollerith• 12 years ago

Right now was a good time for me to learn that Newegg takes a principled stand against patent trolls because I've been thinking of starting to buy from Newegg because I keep on hearing bad things about how Amazon treats its employees.

thedaveoflife• 12 years ago

The lesson from this article: PR can be an effective legal deterrent. Publicize your victories.

tdicola2• 12 years ago

Wow I love that they're taking a stand, and got quite a laugh out of the image. Definitely makes me want to support Newegg as a customer much more in the future.

jerrytsai• 12 years ago

saturdayplace• 12 years ago

Instead of posting a comment like this, it's generally better just to upvote the comment you're agreeing with. The mods are trying to optimize the signal:noise, and there's not much signal in a two-character comment.

theandrewbailey• 12 years ago

I'm proud to be a Newegg customer because they call me their customer, not their consumer.

heyheyhey• 12 years ago

Most companies choose not to recover their legal fees in patent suits because prevailing defendants are required to demonstrate that a plaintiff acted in bad faith. This is extremely difficult to prove and it’s usually easier to just walk away and count your losses – unless your name is Lee Cheng.

Interesting. So if you're a patent troll, there is little to no downside to constantly suing companies aside from the legal fees?

jameskilton• 12 years ago

Exactly. This is the main reason why patent trolling even exists today, because the troll companies never really lose.

This is also the primary aspect of patent troll legislation (punish companies harshly that file frivolous claims) with HUGE bipartisan support, that has just been shelved.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/22/business/legislation-to-pr...

jliptzin• 12 years ago

Legal fees? I would assume they have a team of full-time attorneys on payroll. Since their legal fees are fixed, they're incentivized to use that team as much as possible.

swang• 12 years ago

NewEgg and Nintendo seem to be the only companies willing to actively fight patent trolls. Anyone else?

tdicola2• 12 years ago

Adam Carolla is pooling funds to battle a patent troll that is suing him for podcasting: http://fundanything.com/patenttroll?locale=en

harmegido• 12 years ago

I'm not down with Nintendo - their games are region-locked.

shawnreilly4• 12 years ago

Rackspace is another company that stands up to fight Patent Trolls. And they run OpenStack. (Double the Awesome)

zinxq• 12 years ago

Whenever I can, I buy from Newegg for this reason.

slaven• 12 years ago

I feel it's really important for us, as consumers, to support companies like Newegg. This strategy is really risky for them (despite all the good PR it brings).

It's easy for patent trolls to just move onto different targets and avoid suing combative companies like Newegg, but if we vote with our dollars maybe more companies will see that they too should take a stand.

suprgeek• 12 years ago

Awesome Principled Stand by Newegg! This is one of the reasons to support buying from them.

However this only underscores how easy it is to sue over flimsy patents and how expensive and time-consuming it is to go after and shut down these horrible trolls. Add to this the fact that Patent reform was killed in the Senate by Pat Leahy & Harry Reid (Both of whom are notorious supporters of trial lawyers & pharma) and it is a net loss for the tech industry this week

mst• 12 years ago

What fascinates me is how easy it is to fight if you practice. Lee Cheng is impressive, but I suspect his secret weapon is actually having fought a bunch of such cases knowing he has a 'fuck them, they are going to lose' mandate. An enemy who's very practiced at -not- settling is probably not something his opponents know how to deal with.

calbear81• 12 years ago

Newegg has always been against paying out even way back in the day when I worked there. In the early days of patent trolling, someone sued us in a printer-related lawsuit and they offered to settle for a small sum (VERY small). Basically, the in-house lawyer said that it would cost more money to fight it given his hourly wage but that the CEO was not going to pay if it was a frivolous lawsuit. I see that the same principle has persisted now, a decade later.

arjn• 12 years ago

Newegg is my hero!

mixmax4• 12 years ago

It seems to me that the legal system in the US is largely broken, and that just about anyone can be sued if only you find the right grounds. Being sued and defending yourself is enormously expensive which is what patent trolls exploit.

Why not use this offensively against patent trolls? Find all sorts of ways to take them to court, the American legal seems to have plenty of opportunities in that regard. There are some problems with standing, but I'm sure that a concerted effort could be effective.

Sue them into the ground with guns blazing. Sue them for everything from not upholding workers rights, to misleading advertising and spelling mistakes. Make them taste their own medicine.

The effort could be crowdsourced.

jamra• 12 years ago

The law firms that back up patent trolls are very large and very powerful. The largest and most powerful in the nation.

mixmax4• 12 years ago

This is why extortion works - if your enemy is more powerful than you chances are you will subdue. The mafia figured this out centuries ago.

If you don't stand up to a bully, even if he is Goliath, he will keep on bullying.

cag_ii• 12 years ago

Being sued and defending yourself is enormously expensive...

I think you answered your own question there.

mixmax4• 12 years ago

That's where the crowdsourcing comes in :-)

I'm sure there are young lawyers that would like to give some of these cases a try. Surely there must be someone with a conscience in that line of business. I could also imagine that companies and individuals might want to donate.

bsder• 12 years ago

And the troll companies are always shell companies with nothing but the patents. So, even if you win, the shell company will declare bankruptcy. This is what changed the game. Before, two big companies generally had enough patents that they would simply agree to cross license because they both infringed one another's patents.

So, for the company being sued, it's a no win situation.

mixmax4• 12 years ago

be a bit more creative. It's known who the parent company is, so sue them. Since you're basically just suing for whatever you can get away with you should of course go for the mother ship.

voidlogic• 12 years ago

If they can't pay due to bankruptcy, isn’t there a chance as someone they owe money you will get some of their patents (assets)?

hyp0• 12 years ago

I think the idea is to increase the marginal cost of doing business, so it isn't economic any more. That is, assuming it takes enough some time and effort to declare bankruptcy, set up a new corporation etc.

But you're right, it wouldn't be a win for a specific defendant, it's more a long-term strategy to change the ecosystem by the community - crowdsourced, as the GP suggests. Another option is a consortium of well-heeled companies to methodically troll trolls.

Unfortunately, funding trolling of competitors is probably something some hidden department of those very companies do, while other departments sincerely complain about it.

tempestn2• 12 years ago

The fact that these shell companies don't actually do anything besides sue people is also a problem. It's difficult to find grounds to sue a business that doesn't have any business activities. (Except countersuits as in Newegg's case, so good on them.)

jebblue2• 12 years ago

> And the troll companies are always shell companies with nothing but the patents. So, even if you win, the shell company will declare bankruptcy.

I think you've hit on it. Anyone who proclaims patents are bad overall are not considering that the real problem is the shell companies, "patent trolls", who are taking advantage of a system that was intended to encourage good faith between businesses; these shell companies are the real problem. The law needs to go after them with the "pierce the corporate veil" mantra.

sytelus2• 12 years ago

If troll files bankruptcy, can't the winner claim their assets, i.e., junk patents as payment? Isn't this even better because troll now loses the weapon itself to cause more damage?

Lot of tech companies are sitting on mountain of cash. There is absolutely no reason for them not to go after trolls with 1000% vengeance and eik out every possible cent from them even it cost 10X more to them. I'm dumb founded that no one other than Newegg had this attitude even though these companies keep playing victims.

weland3• 12 years ago

IMHO, this should not be dealt with at a company level, since the shell company is arguably not engaged in any economic activity: their juridical entity is, essentially, worthless.

Instead, given the toxic economic climate the people behind it create, this should be transported into criminal charges brought against the make-believe CEOs behind the shell companies that specifically engage in patent trolling. They're arguably pulling a con against a system designed by the state for something completely different, and their con should be treated no differently than, say, tax evasion.

I think the only reason why companies like these continue to flourish is that the people behind them are entirely safe. No legal system will be able to close down as many companies as they can open. So jail the motherfuckers, or otherwise forbid them to take part in the economic system, and it's bound to stop.

mhandley2• 12 years ago

In one British case I was involved in, the troll's strategy was so obvious they were required to put up a bond to cover at least part of our side's legal fees if they lost. That's a pretty good way to reduce completely frivolous cases.

They did eventually lose (we invalidated their patent). We were still out of pocket, but if their patent had been even weaker, I think they'd have backed out when they had to post the bond.

chris_mahan• 12 years ago

If the patent portfolio of these companies that go bankrupt sold at auction to satisfy creditors? Who buys these, other patent-trolls?

That might be a problem right there.

dalek2point3• 12 years ago

kind of like the mayone.us of patent trolls. brilliant idea.

jon2512chua• 12 years ago

Some may refuse to do this as a matter of principle - not sinking to the level of those you despise.

gamerDude• 12 years ago

If you could put plenty of arguments and the right team together, perhaps you could raise money from a host of technology companies to pursue this.

If you can grind them to a halt or even perhaps drive them to bankruptcy and potentially buy up their patents to open to the public, this could be fundable.

arxpoetica2• 12 years ago

Before I even got to the end of your post, my mind was already thinking about crowdsourcing the system. THIS. NEEDS. TO. HAPPEN.

arxpoetica2• 12 years ago

Why was this downvoted? It's a completely positive comment. Are patent trolls downvoting on ynews? :)

gcb0• 12 years ago

yep. it is broken.

even in this win, they wasted time and money, that a bankrupt shell company cant pay back.

meanwhile, amazon paid a small settlement fee (which makes the troll case even better) and wasted those same resources hiring engineers to build a tablet or whatever.

ksec• 12 years ago

Well from people outside of US, it is not only the legal system. It seems to me US itself is largely broken.

shawnreilly4• 12 years ago

At the last Startup Weekend Honolulu 2014, I introduced my approach towards solving this problem; The Open Patent Foundation (Non-Profit). Similar to concepts such as Creative Commons, and Open Source Software Licenses, the idea is to create Open Patent License(s) that standardize a method to share intellectual property with the Community. While this does not directly solve the problem, I think it is a necessary first step towards realizing that we (as a Community) can leverage the existing broken Patent System in a way that favors us (the Community). Not only does this have the potential to accelerate innovation, it will also prevent Patent Trolls from claiming ownership of innovations, and that's a big deal. These Trolls currently use a Licensing approach to extort people (pay our Licensing Fee or else we will sue). I think it would be ironic (and awesome) to use the same approach to effectively null Patent Trolls. Considering how ineffective Legal Reform is, this might be our best bet; To come together collectively as a Community and decide that we want to take a stand and start using the System in a new and different way. It would be a double win, accelerate innovation and null Patent Trolling. If this sounds interesting, the website is http://www.openpatentfoundation.com and I recently moved to Mountain View, so I'm looking to spend more time on this and see if we can get some Community Support.

gioele• 12 years ago

How is that different from OIN [1]?

[1] http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/ «The Open Invention Network is a shared defensive patent pool with the mission to protect Linux. Launched in 2005, OIN has strong industry support with backing from Google, IBM, NEC, Philips, Red Hat, Sony and SUSE (a business unit of Novell). Any company, project or developer that is working on Linux, GNU, Android or any other Linux-related software is welcome to join OIN, free of charge or royalties.»

ubernostrum• 12 years ago

Cross-licensing and other "we won't sue you if you don't sue us" foundations get created at the rate of about one a year.

If the previous iterations all failed to do anything meaningful, why do you believe that starting yet another iteration will do something meaningful?

pizza234• 12 years ago

The biggest factor in the problem is the US administration complicity, plain and simple.

It's not a technical problem, it's a social one; the are simple ways to largely reduce the problem, which are not applied, because it would hurt corporate interests.

taude• 12 years ago

It's weird that 40-45% of Congress is attorneys.

gorner• 12 years ago

Well, their (nominal) job _is_ to make laws. Members of Congress should be able to read and understand them before voting on them.

But a more representative sample of occupations would be great too.

randallsquared• 12 years ago

On the face of it, it doesn't seem any more odd than that judges are usually attorneys. Also, you'd expect people who are more involved with arguing the law to gravitate toward trying to get the job that involves creating or amending the law.

protomyth• 12 years ago

Some of that is what's become a standard career path for A.G.'s and prosecutors.

ngoede2• 12 years ago

I understand where you are coming from but it does seem straightforward that people who study the law would end up in careers where they write the law.

afarrell• 12 years ago

Its equally weird that a large chunk of people employed to write software went to college and majored in things that require understanding and writing software.

mikeash5• 12 years ago

It's no weirder than a large percentage of programmers holding degrees in computer science or computer engineering.

rayiner• 12 years ago

It's about 26%: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/23/first-thing-we-.... Banking and business is catching up, though, at about 20%.

afternooner• 12 years ago

The system is working perfectly, if you subscribe to the belief that you can own an idea. If an idea can be property, and you can control how your property is used and distributed just like any other property you own. I can not make a product, but simply licence it's use. A middle man is after all the bulk of capitalism. The patent trolls are a solid business model, and the system isn't broken. Again, this is only if you subscribe to the notion that an idea can be owned.

I don't think you can own an idea, actually I know you can't. But we create an artificial and abstract environment in order to put real world constraints on things that simply cannot be contained. It's why we get all these stupid laws, and why they don't work. They are trying to do the impossible.

A corporation is not a person, an idea is not property. But it will take a revolution to change that, and I'm too lazy to start it.

dreamdu5t• 12 years ago

The cognitive dissonance is somewhat disturbing to witness. People decry patent trolls while simultaneously supporting patents. Everyone agrees that excluding others from building a fire because you "own" the process of building a fire would be ridiculous - yet will turn around and apply that same logic to defend patents and copyright.

miles• 12 years ago

Despite rarely buying from NewEgg (outside of the continental US shipping is a bear), I'm signing up for their Premier membership simply to support them in the fight against patent trolls. Their product photos and customer reviews have also offered a lot of value to me over the years.

ElComradio• 12 years ago

I think you've discovered the origin of NewEgg's stance: why order from Amazon when you can buy from Newegg _and_ fight patent trolls?

onedev• 12 years ago

This is so beautiful, I am going to support the hell of out Newegg extra deliberately from now on (e.g. buying stuff even if it's more expensive, takes longer shipping).

I absolutely love this. Lee Cheng, rock on!

sgdesign• 12 years ago

Thanks to the efforts of Lee Cheng and his legal team, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a trial court to reconsider its earlier denial of Newegg’s request for attorneys’ fees and costs in the patent infringement lawsuit brought on by SUS.

Wait, so what did the trial court conclude? Are they making the troll pay or not? I feel like I'm missing something?

Also, isn't it worrying that they had to appeal in the first place?

jessaustin2• 12 years ago

IANAL: The trial court had found for Newegg on the infringement case, but had not taken the additional step of awarding attorney's fees to Newegg. The appeals court has now recommended that the trial court take that additional step. The appeals court doesn't have time to wade through reams of legal invoices. Actually the trial court may have been trying to avoid that as well, but now it has no choice.

It's my impression that courts don't want to award attorney's fees to civil defendants very often, because that would discourage litigation. I think it's reserved for obviously "frivolous" cases. Therefore the need to appeal doesn't seem like a problem.

yxhuvud• 12 years ago

Living in a country where the default is that the loser pays (within reason), I must wonder: Why is discouraging litigation a bad thing?

ArtDev• 12 years ago

I am a longtime customer of Newegg. No where will you find product reviews written by such a dedicated base of geeks. Newegg customer service is also really really good. I buy virtually all of my hardware on Newegg, even if its a few dollars more. That said, I am an even more loyal customer after reading this article.

the_watcher4• 12 years ago

I really wish NewEgg had shirts that looked better than the ones they sell.

tunap• 12 years ago

I get plenty of compliments on my "Geek On" shirt. Of course, something more subdued and pro would be nice...maybe even a collar?

I've been down on their services the last few years, lots of headaches and noticeable lag in ship times... it feels like they had the IPO after all. Also, I don't appreciate having to take the extra step/refresh to exclude the 'Marketplace' from my searches every time... drop-ship crap has sullied their image, IMO. Anyway, I will recommence making them my 'go-to' e-tailer due to this action & for their years of providing (mostly) exhaustive product images, complete spec pages & informed reviews.

the_watcher4• 12 years ago

I meant the patent troll shirt. It's a shade of gray that makes it hard to see the image, and I'd like one more obvious about what it's about.

kordless• 12 years ago

I wore my Rackspace patent troll t-shirt all day. I love Lousy!

finkin1• 12 years ago

As the CEO of a small 5-person startup, getting sued by a patent troll scares the shit out of me. Seeing Newegg take it to these asshats puts a grin on my face. I'll be voting with my dollars by shopping at Newegg.

tempestn2• 12 years ago

Not that I blame them for it at all, but I'm sure the potential for thisresponse isn't overlooked by Newegg when they decide to fight these suits. That said, good on them. Far better to spend money building their brand by fighting back against patent trolls than on run of the mill advertising. (And in the best case scenario, like this one, fighting might not even cost them at all.)

hkmurakami• 12 years ago

Personally, I love the fact that this title evokes the "Don't mess with Texas" line, given that it's the East Texas courts that aid patent trolls so greatly.

digitalengineer• 12 years ago

If it's mainly the Texas court, then why not go after that angle?

saryant• 12 years ago

It's a federal court based in Texas, not a state court.

dTal• 12 years ago

That caught my eye. Surely that's evidence of corruption in itself, if a particular area's courts seem unusually biased in a particular direction?

shmerl• 12 years ago

That's one of the reasons I avoid Amazon and prefer to buy on Newegg.

rbanffy• 12 years ago

Is there a "Patent Troll Response Command" to coordinate the response of companies being sued and to facilitate the creation of groups to fight such lawsuits together?

tim333• 12 years ago

I was thinking that - or is there a site where you can post your troll letter and be put in touch with the other companies that have received the same one? Wouldn't be that hard to build. Does anyone know if there is one?

bsimpson• 12 years ago

"those asshats"

Lawyered.

takinola• 12 years ago

It seems to me that there is a good way for the industry as a whole to address the issue of patent trolls without waiting for legal reform by attacking the economics of the business.

Trolls make money by simply 1. Amassing patent portfolios (the only real fixed costs for this business) 2. Sending infringement letters to victims (sorry, targets) 3. Walking to the bank to cash the checks of companies who cannot afford a legal battle.

Once a troll goes to court, the economics of the business start to fall apart as the legal fees add up and eat into profits. Also, they risk invalidating their patents which jeopardize future revenue streams.

It should be possible to create an alliance of companies (Apple, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft are obvious candidates) that have an interest in a strong ecosystem of innovation to put together a fund that makes legal defense grants available to anyone in the mobile/web space who can demonstrate they have a plausible defense case. The amount needed would not be large (less than $20 million a year should be sufficient to cover the entire industry) since just the fact that every kid on the playground now has the ability to face up to the bullies will reduce the bad behavior considerably.

joshjdr5• 12 years ago

I agree with the principle presented here... but before we all hail Newegg, I'll explain why I have not conducted business with this company since 2009...

Here is a letter I wrote Amex then, disputing a nasty transaction with this company. https://www.dropbox.com/s/8b8dg9diowqz48y/Amex%20Dispute%20R...

This is real, and I won.

cryowaffle• 12 years ago

Trust me, I am doing you a favor: Your redaction technique is very poor. Almost every redaction you used allows us to see the tops and bottoms of the letters which is enough to recreate all the hidden characters.

Partial redaction is no redaction.

joshjdr5• 12 years ago

Was there anything beyond that which would enable reconstruction of the data? Just curious. I was only trying to share, and on a level which would enable the audience to know it was real. Thanks.

neurobro• 12 years ago

What's the point of redaction if you keep enough of the data intact to trivially reconstruct it?

joshjdr5• 12 years ago

I guess none. The information redacted was not really critical, I tried to remove personally identifying information while making the point... but I understand your point and appreciate the feedback. Thank you.

joshjdr5• 12 years ago

Understood, and totally redacted now.

Look, I was just trying to present some truth, at least my truth.

I tried to anonymize, but I understand the audience here is pretty sophisticated..

If anyone wants to advise on how to share this better please advise. I'm not trying to hate, just share some facts. I was surprised the seemingly fanboy level reaction to Newegg here. I did a fair amount of business with them previously and their behavior in this case was truly objectionable. This isn't exactly a Snowden level revelation... I was just saying this company isn't exactly a bunch of angels...

I now use Amazon for what I used to buy from Newegg. They cost a bit more for some things but are a stand up company and have always stood behind their sales. If something doesn't work they accept a return (which is commendable), and if something is delivered broken (which is what happened in this case) they don't give you a rash of sh*t.

lotharbot4• 12 years ago

"I was just trying to present some truth"

Here on HN, we don't want mere truth. We also optimize for interesting and directly relevant comments. "Newegg egregiously screwed up a return for me" may be true, but how exactly is it interesting or relevant in a discussion about their response to patent trolls?

us0r• 12 years ago

Acacia Research has been at this for a long time now. I remember when they went after porn. They claimed to own streaming media and thought the adult industry would settle. While some did, one company took them up and won. If I remember he said it cost them $500k to defend.

jacquesm3• 12 years ago

It cost them quite a bit more than that but they won anyway. That did not stop acacia from extorting (or in some cases trying to) pick fights with smaller entities. They then started to withdraw their cases if it became apparent someone would actually fight back.

(I know this because I supplied a whole bunch of information in that lawsuit and the defendants are customers of mine, Acacia also tried to sue TrueTech Canada Inc but dropped the case when they realized that (1) I wasn't going to budge and (2) the IP was all vested in the Dutch parent company, so the 'shell' effect worked to our advantage for a change. If they'd won in Canada we'd have declared bankruptcy, opened a new office two doors down the hall and continued business with a new daughter company. The Canadian subsidiary had little to no assets, just desks and a bunch of computers.).

ajju• 12 years ago

Well done Newegg. From now on, Anytime I buy electronics, i am going to check Newegg first.

danieltillett4• 12 years ago

Does anyone know why these cases are so expensive to defend? They can't be that complex given the troll basically has nothing. Could you not just hire a junior lawyer out college for next to nothing and put them in charge of running all the defences?

wtallis• 12 years ago

They're expensive because the eastern Texas courts are so favorable to patent plaintiffs that in order to have a meaningful chance for a win you have to either get the USPTO to throw out the patent or get the case moved to a different court (as Newegg did here). The former is extremely time-consuming and expensive, and the latter is difficult and rarely successful. A direct fight against the subject and claims is all but doomed to lose in those eastern district Texas courts regardless of the content of the patent. And if you do find a way to win, you have nothing to retaliate against or recover fees from.

danieltillett4• 12 years ago

Why is it more expensive to run a case in East Texas with some junior lawyer than anywhere else?

smcl• 12 years ago

So why are they so favourable to plaintiffs in patent troll cases in East Texas? Is it as simple as "favourable outomes for patent trolls = more patent troll cases in East Texas = more money for us"?

nitrogen• 12 years ago

My layman's guess is that the discovery and documentation processes would be very invasive and time consuming. Plus the risk of a loss is severe.

danieltillett4• 12 years ago

It looks like discovery is the cause - quoting from [0] "After all, the great struggle in every patent litigation is balancing the fact that discovery is by far the most expensive part of the process...".

It would seem that basically patent trolling is really discovery trolling - pay us or else we will make you go through discovery.

[0] http://patentlawcenter.pli.edu/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Di...

TheMagicHorsey• 12 years ago

Lee is a hero. Most patent lawyers talk in very measured tones when it comes to patent trolls, because they don't want to foreclose the possibility of feeding at the money faucet themselves.

Lee doesn't give a fuck. He straight up calls them thieves and asshats. Baller status.

zo1• 12 years ago

Agreed. The first step to fixing any vague/grey problem is calling it by its real name. If only we could hold our politicians to such a standard, patent reform wouldn't be an issue as it'd already be fixed.

sidcool• 12 years ago

Pretty bold move by Newegg.

mantis3693• 12 years ago

Newegg are cheapskates. The publicity from doing this pays far more than the money they'd save by settling with patent trolls.

jeorgun• 12 years ago

The fact that they're being rewarded for their actions doesn't mean that those actions aren't laudable (especially when that reward consists of their being lauded).

wutbrodo2• 12 years ago

The HN community collectively hasn't ever been able to grasp this concept; apparently if a corporation has any possible benefit from an action, it MUST be the motivation behind the action. It's a particularly delightful cop-out because any positive action (including philanthropy) can be dismissed as a PR move.

Intermernet2• 12 years ago

Do you make all decisions based on potential profit, or do have a principle or two that you occasionally feel like standing up for?

mantis3693• 12 years ago

I have plenty of principles. However I am not a for-profit corporation. It is not cynicism on my part to assume that Newegg is motivated by economics. That is the very definition of a corporation. Maximizing return to shareholders.

galaxyLogic2• 12 years ago

In respect to SW patents isn't the recently renewed US legislation more a problem than a solution. As I understood it, it is no longer who wrote a piece of code that exemplified an idea first, but who first filed for the patent for it?

galaxyLogic2• 12 years ago

The big companies probably don't worry too much about the "trolls", and the current legislation reflects that. They have the legal and financial resources to defend themselves. The Trolls make life hazardous for smaller companies who might go bankrupt because of them. For big companies it's probably just good that smaller disrupting innovators get out of business sooner rather than later.

eklavya• 12 years ago

We need more of this.

DigitalSea• 12 years ago

We need patent reform now.

"their patented technology related to the registration of websites on search engines" — this right here is conclusive proof the patent system in the US is broken. Lets fix this now. How many legal/government resources have been wasted because of trolls like SUS? Leave the judges to put real criminals away.

Thank you for making a good example for the rest of us NewEgg. There are too many people that are unable to defend themselves in situations like these, it is great to know there are companies out there willing to fight (even if it takes years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to win).

Erwin• 12 years ago

Cheng did a "AMA" on reddit -- here are all the questions & answers in a convenient tabled form: http://www.reddit.com/r/tabled/comments/2693ur/table_iama_hi...

MrBuddyCasino• 12 years ago

This is an interview with Paul R. Ryan, former Forbes CEO and now the guy behind Acacia Research, the firm behind the Newegg patent law suit. Was surprised he is not as slimy as I expected: http://vimeo.com/57723958

Intermernet2• 12 years ago

If you're a slimy character, and you want to get to CEO the slime has to be inside, and invisible. These guys are very smart, and very manipulative. Think evil Derren Brown and you'll be close to the mark.

throwaway7767• 12 years ago

I really appreciate the NewEgg strategy in these cases. They're fighting the good fight. And it's a great move to make the most PR splash from their victories to discourage future trolls.

If only they shipped outside the US, I would give them all my business. :)

joshstrange• 12 years ago

I wonder if someone has patented the idea of sue for patents that you never actually use...

Would love to see patent trolls sued for trying to sue for patents they don't use.

thyrsus• 12 years ago

Yup: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/08/01/157743897/can-you-...

fusionefredda• 12 years ago

I hope for the patent trolls the same that happens to SCO

djb_hackernews• 12 years ago

the defense managed to move the trial out of the Eastern District of Texas, a jurisdiction that is known for favoring plaintiffs in patent suits.

They REALLY need to publish how they did that, because that'll help every other company battling patent trolls.

klunger• 12 years ago

I'm American, but have lived in Scandinavia for a couple years now. When I incorporated my bitty start-up last year, I could choose between incorporating here or in the US.

Despite the higher tax burden, I ultimately decided to incorporate here. Why? There were a lot of reasons, but the two biggest ones were: 1) I didn't want to worry about patent trolls 2) I didn't want to worry about net neutrality effecting my first users (we are starting local)

harryh• 12 years ago

Are you sure that the biggest reason wasn't that you live in Scandinavia?

dctoedt• 12 years ago

The article is out of date -- in a good way -- on one point: It says that to recover attorneys' fees from a troll, the winning defendant must show that the troll acted in bad faith. The U.S. Supreme Court changed that rule last month, easing the burden of proof considerably, and giving trial judges far more latitude on that score. [1]

[1] http://patentlyo.com/patent/2014/04/discretion-attorney-liti..., by patent law professor Dennis Crouch.

khaki54• 12 years ago

apparently at newegg you can say asshat on the corporate blog. I like that

lazyant• 12 years ago

Great but singing victory too soon, Newegg haven't won any money yet

pdpi• 12 years ago

They don't need to. This isn't about the money, it's about the message they're sending.

Goronmon2• 12 years ago

Great but singing victory too soon, Newegg haven't won any money yet

They even said that there endgame isn't even to win money in these situations. They are just happy if they can get the other side to spend their own resources/time/money more than they normally would want to litigating cases like this.

superuser2• 12 years ago

I'm a little surprised that patent trolls get such a bad rap on hacker news. I would argue that patent trolls exists to protect the small inventors. Without patent trolls, the big companies can easily infringe the small inventors' patents knowing full well that the little guys can't afford to go up against them in court. The patent trolls merely step in to enforce the rights of the small inventors.

That is not to say that software patents are a good idea or should be allowed, and one could certainly make the case against them, but that's a separate issue.

queensnake• 12 years ago

No, the difference is in the added word troll, not simply a defender. Trolls are non-practicing, and produce nothing and protect nothing. I'm sure a legitimate 'little guy' with a patent would get all the sympathy he deserves here, unless perhaps, as you mention, it's a software patent.

superuser2• 12 years ago

I think you're missing the point. You can't distinguish between the patent troll and the little guy inventor because their rights are one and the same. A patent troll purchases the right to enforce a patent from an inventor who would otherwise not have the resources to enforce it himself. It is that right, the right granted to the inventor, that is being enforced. Without the patent troll the inventor's rights would get trampled by the large corporations. Hence, the patent troll is defending the small inventor's rights.

The fact that the patent troll is not practicing the invention matters not. There is no requirement that a patent holder practice the patent in order to enforce it. I can assure you the big corporations do not practice all patents they hold and enforce, many just get licensed out - and there's nothing wrong with that. But there also shouldn't be anything wrong with the small inventor doing the same thing, except for him it often requires the help of a patent troll. The patent troll is just doing for the inventor what the big corporations do for themselves, thus leveling the playing field.

Shorel• 12 years ago

If only they would sell stuff to me (I'm not in the USA).

tyang• 12 years ago

As a lawyer, I approve this message.

Don't mess with Newegg

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