Re:When Patents Attack
by georgemcbay on Wednesday July 27, 2011 @12:49AM
(#2810820)
While this is generally right, it is also fairly common for patent trolls to go after some small fish they claim are violating a patent first to set a precedent of wins (or settlements) against opponents with weak legal war-chests.
A string of these small victories makes it much easier for them to shake down the big targets later... So while you PROBABLY won't be the target of a lawsuit unless you're very successful, there's a bit of a lottery that happens pretty often with these cases where some small percent of small targets do get run over by the patent holders on the road to the bigger guys. And if you happen to draw the short straw on that, it sucks to be you.
A string of these small victories makes it much easier for them to shake down the big targets later... So while you PROBABLY won't be the target of a lawsuit unless you're very successful, there's a bit of a lottery that happens pretty often with these cases where some small percent of small targets do get run over by the patent holders on the road to the bigger guys. And if you happen to draw the short straw on that, it sucks to be you.