Hacker News Reader

What did it cost Newegg to litigate that?

Does the troll have to pay legal fees?

Hope Newegg can remain price competitive.

And I hope the many companies that caved to this patent troll and paid it millions for claiming it owned the shopping cart now go after it to get all those millions back. With interest.

My understanding is that revenues get siphoned very quickly out of the shell company to avoid precisely that.

I think that one of the fundamental problems with the current patent system is that NPEs are able to use shell companies to shield themselves from the financial consequences of their bad acts. I hope one of the "finer points of patent law" that the Supreme Court will be looking at is just this issue.

Most organizations have general counsel staff that they pay hefty six-figure salaries.

They get paid whether they're in court or surfing reddit. Might as well make them work for a living.

Generally, the general counsel doesn't actually handle active trial matters. They farm it out to a law firm who specializes in the area of law the case is about.

They cannot afford to keep teams of lawyers at the ready. A case through trial is about 2-10 thousand lawyer hours.

How much would patent licenses cost a company like Newegg annually? A couple million? There's your 2-3 litigators and 4-6 thousand lawyer hours.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com