As someone who does not have a dog in this fight, I see no reasons to help them when it's blatantly obvious they are just fighting for themselves.
They're a business, they're supposed to fight for themselves. And the bounty is the reason to help.
This appears to be more than a strategic move for this particular case on the part of Cloudflare. Cloudflare is hoping to build a reputation as 1) aggressive, 2) vindictive, and 3) successful. Believe me, other NPEs will take note and will think twice (or thrice) about suing Cloudflare out of fear of multiple defensive IPRs aimed at not only the patents in suit, but all patents utilized by the NPE in past and current litigation and licensing efforts.
The NPEs, generally, have very low risk tolerance when it comes to actions which may invalidate their money-makers. Thus, Cloudflare is hoping to get blacklisted. Just look at how successful Newegg and Rackspace have been with this strategy.
https://www.cloudflare.com/priorartsearch/
Any idea who are the Cloudfare outside attorneys?
I get the feeling that they won't be getting sued by patent trolls again for a long time, they know that, and they'll be grinding this one into the ground as far as possible.
Patent troll invalidation bounties might become a new thing. The more ways to slay the trolls the better.
a) it can be structured like a credit union or something and owned by its members (reduces incentives for it to grow beyond what's necessary)
b) make it retroactive i.e. you don't have to already be a member to get protection. you can choose to buy in after you've been sent a letter
c) a protection pool of sufficient size and resources might do enough to invalidate so many patents that trolling simply becomes unprofitable. EDIT: Especially if suing a pool member poses an existential threat to the troll in the form of invalidating their entire portfolio. As Cloudflare have shown, you only need one party to stand up for themselves and contest the patents. In that case, premiums go down long-term
This is obviously different from patent pooling and cross-licensing agreements companies use to defend themselves against other practicing entities.
So why would anyone buy in before they get a letter, or maintain their membership once they're no longer in court?
Plenty of people have already gotten a letter; if they all pooled their resources they'd have a decent defense fund already.
> , or maintain their membership once they're no longer in court?
This one, I agree, is harder. Best I can propose is a minimum 5 year membership once you've been sued. Or tweak it some other way so that membership is slightly cheaper, or about as much as, settling.
The ultimate protection racket! "You've got a nice product here, shame if a lawsuit happened to it..."
Wouldn't you know, it already exists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG_LA
The key distinguishing factor here is the protection pool actively seeks to invalidate bad patents. It could also lobby for patent reform. By doing so, it makes patent trolling less profitable and thereby, reduces the need for itself in the future. It's like a health insurance company funding research into perfect health and immortality (but more achievable).
Per my understanding, patent pools also don't offer any protection against non-practicing entities, correct? Since patent trolls don't use any patents themselves, a defendant in a patent suit can't assert any of the pool's patents against the troll in a countersuit.
BUT (and it's a big but, Sir Mix-a-Lot) ...
> These opportunities remain open as long as Blackbird's case against Cloudflare is still active.
So, what will likely happen is that as soon as Blackbird spots this blog post and realize that Cloudflare has no intention of settling, they withdraw their suit, and that means Cloudflare doesn't have to pay anybody a prior-art bounty.
That would actually be in keeping with a patent troll's M.O. They don't want to waste their time actually pursuing lawsuits against companies that are willing to push back. Instead, it's much more lucrative for them to shake down easy targets and reach a quick settlement.