Hacker News Reader

I disagree. Learning the ins and outs of the law and of IP negotiations - a very specialized and cut-throat field - in a few days or maybe weeks is out of the question.

If he can't talk to a lawyer, he's going to lose. Period. Maybe very badly. After having already screwed up, now is not the time to half-ass it.

You're not a terrible person but you've given absolutely terrible advice.

At what point did I tell OP to become an expert on IP law? Nowhere. My advice to OP was to educate himself so that no matter what he did he could be more effective.

> You're not a terrible person but you've given absolutely terrible advice

You didn't read my advice correctly and I place zero value in your opinion about me being a good person or not especially considering you thought you had enough information to even bring up the topic based on one short internet comment.

Now you're nitpicking. Sure, he can educate himself and should. But in the amount of time he has (can't be much) he can learn basically nothing. It's too late for that path to make any sense.

As for the other thing, looks like you're intentionally picking a fight. Therefore, out of deference to your better logic, I withdraw my comment that you are not a bad person.

> If he had that kind of money he'd be talking to a lawyer not us.

He, and you, may not know that you do not always need money up front to engage the services of a lawyer. Many lawyers extend credit to their clients or allow clients to condition their fee on a successful outcome (a contingent fee). Depending on the desired outcome in this case, such an arrangement may be easy. For example, if OP wants to arrange a sale of the IP to his employer, then the lawyer’s fee could be paid from the proceeds. Some lawyers also take credit cards.

Also, an initial consultation to decide if OP wants to hire a lawyer shouldn’t cost anything. OP won’t get any free advice, but he should get an idea of how a lawyer could help in his situation.

My point is you don't need to say obvious things. It's a waste of everyone's time.

The obvious is not always obvious to everyone. Isn't it a waste of time trying to control the obvious?

Given the amount of pushback on that in this thread from you and plenty of others it does not seem that it is all that obvious.

I always had the impression that programmers and developers should be well enough paid to afford some first legal consulting.

(1) Few good lawyers in this space give free initial consults.

(2) Contingency isn't all too helpful unless you definitely go for litigation. OP definitely shouldn't go for litigation here.

Not only are you wrong, but you're being dramatic and deflecting criticism. People being "shitty" when you ask for legal advice online or not is a complete red herring because it is an inappropriate and dangerous substitution. Fiverr? Are you kidding? You can get a fairly cheap half hour consultation of some kind with many a good lawyer for a few hundred dollars AT MOST and it will not be a waste of time. There's only one right answer here.

Your answer is dangerous and your attitude is flippant. You need to seriously rethink both, or you're going to get yourself or someone else in hot water someday.

It's pretty clear that you're in read-only mode. You think you know the only answer so what can I tell you.

I've had a lot of conversations about this lately, but my tolerance for this kind of ignorance ends where the possible damage begins. You are directly leading someone down a dangerous course and playing with fire. Feel free to make that choice for yourself if you really want to, but don't expect to give this poor advice to others in a public forum without a reality check.

It isn't necessarily obvious, and if the question is being asked, it needs to be said.

> An out-of-the-box idea might be to find a paralegal on FIVERR and ask them to dig up resources to read up on.

Ideas are a picodollar a dozen. Why don't you try this one and tell us how it works out? Or, at a minimum, find out if you could even theoretically hire a paralegal on Fiverr?

Seems like it'd be a pretty bad idea on the paralegal's part to take the gig.

Why is that?

It is illegal in every US jurisdiction I’m aware of for a paralegal to give legal advice.

Attorneys have a legally enforced monopoly on legal advice because, well, they write the laws.

And even if you found a paralegal willing to break the law, you'd either get an idiot who can't get a job anywhere or have to pay a lot more than $5