Hacker News Reader

Comment by VyseofArcadia | Hacker News Reader

> Does the company own any software patents?

> This includes purely “defensive” patents, in industries where their competitors abuse intellectual property law to stifle competition.

My own company was pretty staunchly opposed to software patents until we got sued by patent trolls. We are now pretty aggressive about patenting things so that doesn't happen again. Software patents were never great, and bad actors have made things even worse.

View on HN

But you can't use patents to protect yourself against a typical patent troll. A typical patent troll doesn't do anything except sue people so they are unlikely to infringe anybody else's patents.

You can patent the stuff that is essential to what you do as soon as you come up with it - before the troll can. Then the troll can't sue because they can't get the patent in the first place (or if they do, you can use yours to invalidate theirs).

I don’t believe this actually holds up, as it assumes the USPTO is sufficiently funded to perform due diligence on prior art, and assumes that minuscule improvements will not constitute patentability. Patents are intentionally written with overreach. Overlaps are common.

Crap patents are granted daily.

Oh, absolutely. It's just that, if they grant yours first, and you also intentionally write it with overreach, then even if the PTO also grants theirs, the courts will find for you because yours has priority.

That's the theory. In practice it tilts the odds in your favor, but is not an absolute safety net.

the classic tale of the "make it proprietary" trolls. uuh! someone should make it a paper chase all the way to insurance companies!

Now I'm having fond nostalgia for Groklaw and coverage of SCO vs. everyone.

thank you for your memories.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com