Here's the problem: how do you feel about essentially donating your time and creative energy to patent trolls and defense lawyers? If at least there were some kind of public good, I could almost stomach it, but to see these vultures take away the benefits of my hard work, it would be incredibly painful. What makes this worse is that it almost seems to be a kind of roulette... but then again, that is a design feature rather than a flaw from the pov of the trolls. After all, if patents were easy to understand and predictable, people could easily see what is patented legitimately and what isn't, and sidestep the minefield. The system needs to be essentially random, opaque, and unpredictable to keep the industry stocked with fresh meat.

Hopefully you are never involved in any legal dispute, because the discovery process is going to be hilarious when this comment turns up.

Is that what you'd advise people to say to the judge?

well the best way to do this would fix the current situation with patent reform...

a) whenever i comment on something on the internet I do not want to think about what legal implications it might have for a hypothetical legal dispute tht I might get involved in the future b) We are assuming that the prosecution will be smart enough to figure out that samyzee on hacker news is in fact me. c) To Hacker News: Please add a feature that lets me delete my comments!!