Re:Patent troll gives up, can’t defend “matchmaking” patent ...
by JoshTriplett on Friday September 19, 2014 @05:42PM
(#8342646)
> Sadly no, it is not a crime.
That depends; it can be, if the owners of the LLC act in sufficiently bad faith. That's what "piercing the corporate veil" is about: when the owners of a company abuse the liability shield badly enough that they should be personally liable. Pulling money out in anticipation of a bankruptcy (as opposed to spending it in good faith as part of doing business) could potentially qualify for that.
Re:Patent troll gives up, can’t defend “matchmaking” patent ...
by rdudek on Friday September 19, 2014 @05:56PM
(#8342713)
That only applies if they still do something illegal. This generally applies to cases of money-laundering, drugs, criminal intentions. There would have to be a separate case initiated by the legal system.
Re:Patent troll gives up, can’t defend “matchmaking” patent ...
by jgable on Friday September 19, 2014 @06:47PM
(#8342891)
Not the case. Piercing the corporate veil depends on a number of factors that do not involve grossly illegal actions like you describe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piercing_the_corporate_veil#Un...
The "win" here is that "do it on a computer" patents are being invalidated left and right by the courts and that is crimping the revenue stream of trolls and having them re-evaluate their portfolios.