

PatentHackers – A new platform to help companies kill patent trolls - jamesshen
http://www.mobiusbobs.com/

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jacquesm
This is a great effort. I help companies defend themselves from lawsuits
involving nonsense patents regarding the stuff that I happen to know a bit
about. One thing that might be done to help concentrate the effort where it
has the most effect is to find out about the actual lawsuits filed by the
trolls and then to prioritize those.

It's great to go after all patents filed by some troll, and that needs doing,
but for the parties that are being sued by trolls specific action on specific
patents would be far more beneficial.

Most of the patents litigated today were filed quite a while ago and if we
don't concentrate on finding the prior art that might help a party sued under
those particular patents it might well get lost. So concentrate on the patents
that are actively litigated first, then concentrate on the patents that can
still be easily squashed and then work from the oldest to the newest.

I realize that's a tall order but this is imo the best way to prioritize this
kind of work. The main reason for the prioritization like this is that patents
are filed in a system that does not forget, prior art is not filed in a
central place and even stuff that happened less than two decades ago can be
almost impossible to locate any proof of that will stand up in court. So older
stuff should get priority.

Incidentally, Joao Controls is still on the warpath with their bogus live
video patents.

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SkyMarshal
Great idea. Also fwiw, kudos to Peer2Patent and AskPatents. Good to see more
sites like this, organizing the world to fight trolls.

[1]:[http://www.peertopatent.org/](http://www.peertopatent.org/)

[2]:[http://patents.stackexchange.com/](http://patents.stackexchange.com/)

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jamesshen
Thanks, we hope build strong community in the whole eco-system to fight
trolls/bad-patent.

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jacquesm
Hi James, ff 29 hides the quest list button on the top right when you try to
click on it so nothing happens.

The same on other pages with the menu on the left, clicking it does not work.
Typo: 'all quest[s]' 'my quest[s]' 'All payments will be sent directly to the
PayPal account that we will fu[r]ther inquire' (in fact that whole sentence
doesn't parse)

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jamesshen
Hi jacquesm, what is "ff29"? Yeah These feature we're still working that,
should be working soon:) Wow I should check those words spelling...thank
you!!!!

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jacquesm
You're welcome, ff 29 -> FireFox 29

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chrisBob
Being able to right click and open different offerings in new tabs would make
me much more likely to look around. Needing to click on one, and then back out
and select the next slows down my workflow and makes me more likely to give up
and move on to another similar site.

I really like the idea of the rewards though. Someone willing to spend some
time on the research could stay in business with this.

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AOP666
The fact that quests from all over the world are collected and placed at one
place makes it easier (not to mention, a lot more interesting) for prior art
treasure hunters like me to participate in.

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akurilin
Here's the real question though: does knowing that there exists prior art to a
certain patent in question at all change the need to go through a painfully
lengthy and exorbitantly expensive legal process to prove that one's innocent?

Or does this still require a company to be as well capitalized as Newegg in
order to be able to withstand a patent attack, and thus doesn't really matter
for the majority of us?

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Kliment
When a patent application is in its larval stage, 6 months after initial
publication, at least in the US it can be murdered by prior art submitted by
anyone, online, for free. A number of open source hardware and software
communities I try to keep up with are now under direct threat of patents, and
a centralized place where we could get a simple listing of patent app link,
time until vulnerability period is over, and possibly a forum to discuss
possible directions of prior art and coordinate submission would be extremely
helpful. That way, it's possible to eradicate the assheaded attempts to
restrict ideas before they become enforceable by law.

For an already issued patent, I understand it's worth trying to put the trial
on hold while it gets re-examined. A reexamination is generally much cheaper
than a patent trial.

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jimiwen
In the AIA 2011, there are some new post-grant opposition procedure that
speeds up and reduce the legal cost such as PGR, IPR, CBM. Although opposition
application is about $30k USD plus some paper work. This is not super cheap,
but it is still a lot cheaper than going through discovery and superstar trial
lawyers by litigating, which would be in the millions $$.

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jacquesm
The problem here is that the parties that are going to get hit with those
patents probably don't even exist yet. Your typical patent troll buys patents
that have value, the filing was done in bulk in the past, then by the time the
state of the art has progressed for a bit (much more than half a year) they
look over their portfolio and decide which patents can be harvested.

Some patents trolls will buy up selected patents that have been filed by
others.

So the opposition applications will likely not be done because you'd have to
oppose a whole ton of patents more or less on principle without knowing
whether or not those patents would ever be used to litigate.

The patent office should get better at doing its job and should not simply
approve the vast majority of what goes past their desks without doing actual
work, and should make the filer pay a stiff fine if they miss disclosing prior
art should the patent be refused or overturned.

Not that that is ever going to happen, but the current system favours the
applicant way too much.

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jimiwen
Although courts/ITC might not grant a stay depending on IPR, CBM etc., there
have been some cases if the litigation hasnt gone too far, a stay could/have
been granted in some of cases. Would this tip the scales towards the defendant
slightly, given that the specific patents would be known?

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curated22
Community based (even ones centered around IP..not necessarily geographically
based) things always fascinate me and get me giddy. Plus...the idea is
brilliant. It might not cater to the general public (like quirky does) but
that's ok. Doesn't need to . It caters to those people with a love of data and
understanding and want to be apart of something (and maybe make some $$).

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marcd
nice concept :) btw the scrollbar on chrome (current/35.0.1916.114m) is
missing 0_o

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jamesshen
To Life360:(If you see this) Dear sir, we are here to help you. We understand
how painful it is, and we believe that "Mr. Piece of Sh*t" should striped off
all his bogus patents. We leverage expert crowd(2000+,growing) from all around
the world to find "bugs" in Mr. Malcom Beyer's patents.

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jimiwen
Let’s help Life360 fight back. [http://venturebeat.com/2014/05/23/patent-
trolls-have-come-af...](http://venturebeat.com/2014/05/23/patent-trolls-have-
come-after-my-startup-im-fighting-back/)

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sbisker
I don't get it - why does the page keep calling me Bob?

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NAFV_P
That made me a bit paranoid at first, since my name is Robert.

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jamesshen
Sorry man. Maybe I should fix this later, Bob.

(Ok Robert I will fix this I promise)

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pokoleo
There are a few issues with your signup that stopped me from signing up:

\- Signup with Facebook is broken (invalid url?) \- Private is spelled
"privite" (incorrect) \- Submitting a signup form missing one input causes it
to clear out. \- There is no clear indication that fields are mandatory. I
guessed that you didn't need my school/job, but it looks like it was
necessary. \- Why do you need my school/job? \- Dropdown boxes cannot be
tabbed-between (tab button doesn't work) \- When I move my mouse inputs move
too.

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jamesshen
Sorry we will fix the Facebook login, typo ASAP.

User background help us curate all the submissions more effectively.

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TheRealPomax
needs a spell check though, there's quite a bit of copy that has spelling or
grammar mistakes, or missing words.

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yiting1128
Patent hackers, huh? I think I like it.

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jimiwen
There are plenty of bugs in a patent. Each patent examiner only has 10-20 to
"examine" a patent application, many bad and "dangerous" patents get granted.
I think using a hacker's approach can weed out bad patents like bugs!!

