Comment by saryant | Hacker News Reader

Comment by saryant | Hacker News Reader

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To those patting themselves on the back as we begin another round of Texas bashing (because, let's face it, for a number of people here that's their favorite part of patent stories), may I ask why you blame an entire state?

When things go wrong in California or New York or Massachusetts, those states aren't blamed: the individuals take the heat! (What a concept!) But whenever something bad happens in Texas, somehow all 26 million of us are involved and culpable.

Case in point: a few minutes ago there was a post here saying we should poison the water in East Texas to stop this. Thankfully, it has been deleted.

Battling bigotry with bigotry is not likely to work. When Hollywood pushes for another batch of draconian copyright laws no one here raises up there hands and hopes for the "big one" to knock LA into the ocean. When municipalities go after Uber or AirBnb no one begs to push that entire state out of the union. Why the double standard?

(I know why, no need to answer that question)

Certainly as a Texan and tech person I'm not a fan of this ruling but the vitriol displayed here towards an entire state verges on disgusting. FWIW, I grew up in the Bay Area and across California, I'm not some Pineywoods hick who never left the trailer park.

I am, however, quite tired of the hatred and, frankly, gleeful malevolence sometimes displayed on this site towards Texas.

I'm a Texan (10 years in Houston, 10 years in Austin, and currently residing in Austin), and I'm one of the most vocally anti-Texas people in this thread (though I'm not suggesting poisoning the water).

I'm just very frustrated. The future of Texas, just like the rest of the country (but very much so Texas), is technology. This one little town, and this one judge, seem to be hell-bent on destroying innovation. There's just so much wasted energy and effort, and it makes me sad to see the bad guys win so frequently (and these are bad guys; they've extorted millions from people who had no idea this really silly patent existed).

Agreed. As a fellow Texan, I'm embarrassed that this relatively small town has become the de facto venue for patent battles... especially those involving patent trolls.

How would we go about changing this? Surely the rest of the nation is taking note at the bias afforded to patent trolls by Marshall. I just don't understand how, especially in this case, they could have sided with the troll. Is there an economic benefit for the people of Marshall to side with the trolls or are they just completely oblivious when it comes to technology cases? I am completely dumbfounded by this Texas court.

Judges are elected in Texas, but I don't think that applies in the case of federal judges. The infamous T. John Ward retired a couple years back, but it seems like the tradition continues with whoever is hearing these cases now.

I think, in the end, there needs to be patent reform...which just got shot down before it ever really even got any traction. So, I don't know. Educating people about the harmful effects of software patent law and patent trolls might be a useful start. This is pretty obscure stuff to most people.

_I completely agree with everything you have said. My reply is not about that._

But the comparison is not very apt. Hollywood's draconian copyright laws would mean that you can't watch a movie or listen to a song, which is no big sacrifice. Patents are an affront to your freedom. Any service, app or business you build will violate some patent or the other. Countries have chosen to hand over monopolies on ideas and thought.

This may not affect many of us. But having to watch helplessly while companies like NewEgg suffer is very, very painful.

That's exactly it.

Patents can affect anyone at any time, whereas copyright laws affect certain individuals that have violated the terms.

Theoretically of course. There have been cases of people being sued for piracy when they don't even have a computer.

Fair enough, it's a poor analogy. I absolutely agree with your assessment of patents however.

What are you talking about? We bash Hollywood all the time. Now we're bashing East Texas - not all 26 million of you.

I think you're just being a tad over-sensitive here (and I say that as someone who moved to Dallas in 1987). I've been on HN for 4-5 years and I've never heard or seen "Texas bashing" here.

Texas' population is almost 10% of the US. Texas is also the 2nd largest state, comprising almost 8% of the land mass of the US. Besides, I'd guess half of the HN crowd today are overseas - I doubt the average non-North American HN person could name more than 7 states. And of those 7, Texas, California, and New York are in every single person's list.

There has been a fair share of Texas bashing here. Mostly complaining about EDT and other various shenanigans going on.

> When things go wrong in California or New York or Massachusetts, those states aren't blamed: the individuals take the heat! (What a concept!)

Well, as a Florida resident, I think we must be some exception to your rule then. It seems we always get blamed as a whole for the actions of the few.

You should see the French-bashing here.

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