tedjedbed

Re:Ask HN: HELP Patent troll cruising my industry. What to do? on Saturday January 10, 2009 @12:07PM (#428048)

I wonder if it would be hard to get in our case ... like getting health ins. with a pre-existing condition

Re:Ask HN: HELP Patent troll cruising my industry. What to do? on Saturday January 10, 2009 @04:04AM (#427825)

Sure, but I think there's a big difference between an innovative company actively designing and licensing technology–and a company being formed solely for the purpose of sitting on patents until they can sue a company for infringement.

Maybe I'm incorrect, but in the web 1.0 days, it seems patents were approved which are overly-broad ...

when you're simply conducting industry-specific business over the internet using standard technology and media, how does that pass the non-obvious test?

Re:Ask HN: HELP Patent troll cruising my industry. What to do? on Friday January 09, 2009 @09:30PM (#427487)

Can you (or anyone here) recommend a good IP attorney?

"and knowledge that you appear to be infringing"

This is what I'm trying to wrap my head around. What defines "infringing"? The patent abstract covers some features that we do, but also some that we don't.

How much overlap is required before it's considered infringement?

Ask HN: HELP Patent troll cruising my industry. What to do?

Posted by tedjedbed on Friday January 09, 2009 @08:37PM
from the ask-hn dept.

Ok, this isn't my normal HN username, sorry.Our startup provides web services/apps to a specific industry. Today I received news that one of our main competitors (although larger) just paid a multi-million dollar settlement to a patent troll.I'm no attorney, but reading the abstract of the patent is scary–it's so broad that just about any tech company in our industry could be a target. They...

( Read More... | 21 comments | 24 points | on HN )