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A comment on Ask HN: I was hit with a patent troll lawsuit, how do I deal with it?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: I was hit with a patent troll lawsuit, how do I d... by ddlsmurf on Monday June 21, 2021 @04:16PM (#27583847)
Why wouldn't they just go "fine, let's deal with your next batch in court, good luck keeping them" ?
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Re:Ask HN: I was hit with a patent troll lawsuit, how do I d... by ta1234567890 on Monday June 21, 2021 @04:30PM (#27584021)
Because it was probably more expensive (and risky) to go to court and spend a ton of money on lawyers than just pay the license and be done with it.
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Re:Ask HN: I was hit with a patent troll lawsuit, how do I d... by ddlsmurf on Monday June 21, 2021 @06:22PM (#27585308)
But if the licence is that cheap, they're showing their hand, the difference between a protection scheme and IP protection here is incredibly murky. Even if you didn't aim to help others not be bullied around, going for a settlement seems the smarter option.
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Re:Ask HN: I was hit with a patent troll lawsuit, how do I d... by ta1234567890 on Monday June 21, 2021 @07:54PM (#27586119)
You are right and it probably wasn’t cheap, but at least comparable to the cost of going to court. If you have two options that cost around the same, but one will give you an immediate out, it’s likely you want to take the immediate out rather than taking additional risk for a what if.

On a side note, I know someone who’s company got sued, then when the lawyers came to the table to negotiate, they showed him a list of other companies that had previously settled with them and the amounts they had settled for. He said the lawyers had clearly done their homework in terms of estimating how much it would cost the company to go to court and the proposed settlement amount was within 10-15% of that estimate. He decided to settle.

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