Hacker News Reader

You clearly don't understand how much people hate patent trolls and software patents in general. It's all a cruel joke, and getting paid some token sum of money to invalidate a bunch of worthless patents is just a nice bonus. You wouldn't do it for free because generating these patents is your job.

View on HN

You are mistaken. I'm a former patent examiner as pointed out in the third word of my first comment here. So I have no conflict of interest. And I think I have a solid understanding of how much people hate patent trolls and software patents in general, which is why I added the qualifier about how I know my comment would be unpopular in some other comments here.

Conflicts of interest don't really work like that. You are a patent examiner even after you stop working as one, and for as long as your loyalties and ideas remain with your former job.

I’d say the conflict of interest has gone away, but the years of rationalizing cognitive dissonance have solidified certain opinions.

"I'm going to say something you hate"

> Says something we hate

"Why do you hate what I said?"

Reply on news.ycombinator.com