kramerdj

We don't plan to do so. I'm not immediately familiar with the case, you cite but it was our understanding from counsel that was a very unlikely outcome for us, which isn't surprising as attorneys fees are VERY difficult to recover in the US system.

This was our attempt at contributing to a solution, not sure it solves the whole problem. Patents do serve a purpose, so you don't want to throw out the baby, it's as much an easily-abusable litigation system. Enough random behavior and long-term strategic behavior may make trolls think twice before setting up shop if it's not an easy thing.

Big players see their share of cases as well, if not more. Settling or licensing the technology will generally be cheaper in the short term than litigating the case.

As we described a bit in a previous post at the end of the litigation -- https://blog.cloudflare.com/winning-the-blackbird-battle/ -- in addition to the money we paid for the crowdsourced bounty, we also had to pay considerably to litigate the case. Even though we won the underlying litigation as quickly and convincingly as possible, we still spent more in legal fees than Blackbird might have been able to recover in damages after trial. That's why settling / licensing will always make more short-term economic sense, and keep trolls alive.

Hey everyone, Doug Kramer, Cloudflare GC, here. Happy to answer any questions as we close out this chapter.