Comment by teej | Hacker News Reader

Comment by teej | Hacker News Reader

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Woah, wait a second. Small inventors are not filing suits against dozen of defendants in carefully chosen jurisdictions. Often, they'll just target the top few companies breaching the patent. They aren't looking to make a living on patent settlements, they're looking to make a living on the technology they invented.

Soheil Sharafabadi sues 3 Universities over mustard seed patent - http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009794832_a...

Jim de Cordova sues one company over sleep mask patent - http://news.yahoo.com/dreamcloud-sleep-mask-inventor-sues-sl...

A retired engineer sues Clorox over bleach patent - http://ww2.gazette.net/stories/082407/businew12306_32368.sht...

A Pennsylvania woman sues Victoria Secret over bra patent - http://www.docstoc.com/docs/75307539/Pennsylvania-Inventor-S...

There are dozens of stories like this. The profile of a small inventor case looks nothing like these patent troll cases.

there are... dozens?

Are you seriously defending the billions that the patent system costs our economic system with the idea that it protects "dozens" of individuals and small businesses?

Seriously, if you stack up the number of patent lawsuits and license fees extorted by IBM, TI, Microsoft, and others against small tech firms, the damage to small business by the patent system is overwhelmingly larger than the benefit some small businesses might gain from it.

His point is merely that the logic does not evenly apply to patent trolls and small inventors. He is saying nothing about the overall benefits of the patent system.

The point is not that the patent system is wholly sane, but that it is made somewhat more sane by a careful imposition of legal costs that by and large affect only patent trolls.

Small inventors are not filing suits against dozen of defendants in carefully chosen jurisdictions. Often, they'll just target the top few companies breaching the patent. They aren't looking to make a living on patent settlements, they're looking to make a living on the technology they invented.

Why not? Simply because small inventors have to pay retail price for their lawyers, whereas the patent trolls typically are (or have regular full time) lawyers. There's nothing inherent in the "small-inventor-ness" of the plaintiff that makes them file suit in certain patterns.

Therefore, a small inventor may get a better deal either selling the patent to the manufacturing company or making good on the threat to sell it to a trolling firm who will aggressively seek to ruin them. Better that than waste their life savings on legal expenses that will likely drag on for years.

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