Launch HN: Buoyant (YC S21) – Blimp drones for air freight

Re:Launch HN: Buoyant (YC S21) – Blimp drones for air freight by diskzero on Monday August 23, 2021 @03:19PM (#28280669)

I was once told by a VC to never do a patent search as the money spent on the search and analysis would be better spent on developing the idea. Bad advice?

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Re:Launch HN: Buoyant (YC S21) – Blimp drones for air freight by mike_d on Monday August 23, 2021 @08:57PM (#28283978)

If you do a search two things will happen:

1) You are now aware of the patent and continuing to willfully infringe

2) You're going to spend days obsessing on how your idea is different, or they didn't think of this or that, or this tiny edge case convincing yourself of non-infringement.

In both cases any patent litigation attorney worth their salt will absolutely murder you. The best part is so many broad patents exist that everything infringes on one.

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Re:Launch HN: Buoyant (YC S21) – Blimp drones for air freight by jnwatson on Monday August 23, 2021 @04:52PM (#28281769)

It doesn't take much money to search. It does, however, expose you to treble damages due to "willful infringement".

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Re:Launch HN: Buoyant (YC S21) – Blimp drones for air freight by sentrysapper on Monday August 23, 2021 @03:33PM (#28280839)

I'm sure patent trolls would agree with that advice.

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Re:Launch HN: Buoyant (YC S21) – Blimp drones for air freight by smt88 on Monday August 23, 2021 @05:04PM (#28281910)

All advice from VCs tends to be bad, but legal advice from VCs should be dismissed outright.

The search is very cheap and easy, and then you can decide if the risk is worth it.

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