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Comment by dangerlibrary | Hacker News Reader

For anyone looking for an ~20 minute intro to why this is a big deal and the impact it has on small tech companies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG9UMMq2dz4

tl;dw: There are some over-broad patents on usage of very common technologies (using wifi or selling on the google play store are two egregious examples) that are being used as a bludgeon against small and medium sized firms that can't afford to defend themselves. It costs about $3 million to defend against such a suit, and the Eastern district is known for refusing to force plaintiffs to pay defendant's attorney's fees even if the suit is ultimately dropped.

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just wanted to thank you for providing this summary.

Unfortunately, there's a lot of misinformation and half-truth in that video.

I'd be very interested in specifics on this.

I work in the field, and on both sides of patent litigation. As far as I can see, there is no misinformation or half-truths in that video. What he's talking about is entirely real and relatively common, but it is not categorically true of all trolls.

Sue the Eastern District for unequal application of the law. It's easily provable with the current track record.

Can you even sue a court? Seems too good to be true.

no - the best you can do is get it appealed to a higher court.

Not in this case. You would need to have standing and a relevant claim to sue any person or firm. I would think it would pretty difficult to show sort of generalized claim about the injustices of the patent system. That is a political question, not a legal question.

Class action by victims of patent trolls?

Could a tech company, as a potential futute patent holder, sue?

Yes, there are ways to sue the courts themselves, but not for something like this. The suit would generally be in the form of what's called a Writ of Mandate. It's basically a lawsuit for when you have no other legal recourse for something. For example, if you went to a courthouse and asked for a copy of a statutorily public document but they refused to give it to you, you could file a such a writ. It would force the court to at least give you a hearing before a judge, who you'd ask to compel the court personnel to give you what you asked for.

Sounds great, but it seems like something Newegg or Costco's lawyers would have started on already if it were feasible.

Costco's golf ball case was filed in the state where it's headquartered: Washington.

Only because Costco pre-emptively sued the patent holding company in order to choose the venue.

True, but the point was, Costco doesn't have cause to do anything in East Texas.

I dunno, I think it will just introduce more variability and stretch out the cases. East Rural texas was actually pretty good at litigating patents because they knew a lot about it since they did so many.

Better would be to reform the patent law, maybe create short term 5 year patents or something.

They did so many because of their notorious pro-patent holder stance made them the favorite place to file.

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