I'm very surprised that nowhere in the article does the author advise someone in this position to get a lawyer. If I were being sued by a patent troll (or anyone else), the very first thing I'd do is hire competent legal counsel and let them communicate on my behalf. Not being a lawyer myself, I don't know how to figure out whether the troll's suit is frivolous or not, and I don't know whether some offhand remark I might make to their lawyer could get me in trouble. It's also possible that once the troll sees that I have a lawyer, they might just drop their suit and go after easier prey.<p><i>"He then told us we had until the end of the day to settle the case or face criminal charges for harassment. We immediately notified the FBI of his extortion attempt."</i><p>That seems to indicate that the troll's lawyer was fairly incompetent; I don't think a competent lawyer would have made such a baseless and self-incriminating threat. A competent lawyer might have been much harder to beat if he didn't have a lawyer of his own.
"I’m personally willing to commit over $1 million to fight this injustice..."<p>The other 5 steps would seem pretty irrelevant as a defendant in the absence of the above resource.
I think a tool is necessary to allow people who are threatened with litigation, but are not yet part of a lawsuit, to find each other. So, if some lawyer contacts me and tells me that I am infringing on patent X, and I should settle before trial, it would be awesome if there was a site where I could go and register (anonymously) that I am being threatened with litigation for infringement of patent X. The site would link me up with other people who are either already being sued, or threatened with a lawsuit for Patent X.<p>It's an idea that has been floating around in my head for a while now, but due to time limitations, I have yet to implement it. What do you guys think.
Can someone explain to me HOW these exist? Every time I read a story about patent trolsl it enrages me. How do these even exist?? I get the gist of what they do, but how come they don't have to pay any money, or even back up their claims?<p>How hard would it be to just pass a law that stops these $&% pricks? Will this happen any time soon do you think?
I didn't find any useful content here, but at least there were five steps!<p>vi hart on why we like 5 reasons videos:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cyw3ncjnH8" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cyw3ncjnH8</a>
Ease of slaughtering is well and dandy, but are patent trolls tasty? Can the meat be cured or smoked? What's the caloric intake and fat percentage? These are important questions to be answered before patent trolls can be added to our food baskets.
Besides generic software patents, the oddest one I've seen is being able to patent a color. Since Nike has the patent on the color "Maize", Adidas had to come up with a new color for Michigan athletics.<p>Also, I'm not sure how prevalent it is, but there may be an opportunity for a business of being the go to firm for fighting these trolls. Like the article said, being familiar with the companies and the process makes it easier, and if you could be the go-to firm for fighting them, especially since you would become more desirable the more often you fight the same groups.