
Trollala – Fight patent trolls by banding together confidentially - ideaphore
http://trollala.com
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rdtsc
This is great. Would like to see more of these kinds of efforts.

Just watched The Patent Scam video by Austin Meyer (developer of X-Plane
flight sim who was sued by patent trolls).

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG9UMMq2dz4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG9UMMq2dz4)

That kind of stuff makes my blood boil.

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ideaphore
Thanks. It makes our blood boil too.

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RyJones
Are you working with Newegg on this? Lee Cheng could be a powerful ally
[https://twitter.com/leechcheng](https://twitter.com/leechcheng)

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ideaphore
Good idea. We'll reach out.

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iakh
What's to stop the troll from submitting their own letter and joining and/or
influencing the defense group?

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ideaphore
Trolls might very well try this. We will carefully screen people who sign up
to make sure this doesn't happen. We have several ways in mind to do this,
happy to discuss if you're interested. If trolls stoop to fraud or bribery to
infiltrate the group, there's not much we can do - this is true of regular
joint defense groups too. If they do infiltrate, they can make things
difficult, but they can't completely destroy the utility of it. Our tools
would still make small businesses more powerful than they were alone.

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premium-concern
Plus, it would look very poorly in court if trolls would be caught doing this.
So maybe instead of not letting them join, show them that they "joined", but
don't show them any relevant information?

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orthoganol
Just wondering, is this a weekend 'throw up a template' project or a serious
effort from someone in the industry? I would have some hesitation submitting
without a sense for who is behind it.

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ideaphore
Appreciate the concern. This is a collaboration between ideaphore (the co-
invention platform and service) and hard-ip.net (patent agent firm). Both
companies were founded by people who are passionate about innovation and
putting an end to predatory patent trolling. We're committed to making this
work if people really want it. We'll do our best to protect your personal
information.

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rubidium
Good idea. But definitely need

\- A FAQ. Trust is a big deal here. Why trust you?

\- HTTPS

\- An overview of options for your target customer. The reason someone will
need your service is because they've just received a letter claiming patent
infringement. A basic tutorial on "what you can do when you get a patent
infringement letter" would be pretty useful.

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ideaphore
FAQ added, SSL added, resources and guides coming later today. Thanks again
for your input.

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osipov
How's this any better than
[https://trollingeffects.org/](https://trollingeffects.org/)

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ideaphore
On trolling effects, uploaded demand letters are displayed publicly. Small
business owners (targets) are worried that the trolls will retaliate if they
find out the target is looking to fight back. We will not post your demand
letters, but will instead confidentially match you with others who have
received similar letters. Also, we will provide a private collaboration
environment where all participants sign an NDA and fundraising tools.

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oh_sigh
In what manner could trolls retaliate if they find out the target wants to
fight the case? Couldn't the trolls just pretend like they got a lawsuit on
this site, and then be matched with the confidential other parties?

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ideaphore
When trolls send demand letters, they make it sound like it's in your best
interests to settle for a license fee quickly before they start suing people.
Don't ask too many questions, just fork over some cash. And it might well be
in your best interests, you won't know until you know what others who received
the letter are doing. But if you tell a troll that you are thinking of
fighting their patent, they tend to become irate, raise the settlement figure,
threaten to sue, or file suit. We think that this is why there have not been
many submissions on trollingeffects. We will do our best to screen members to
make sure that they are from bona fide companies that received a letter. I
gave a bit more detail on this in a question above.

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oh_sigh
If you're going to fight, why does it matter what their settlement figure is?

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ideaphore
It's good to leave that option open, where possible. We would not want anyone
to abandon it. For instance, if an IPR fails to invalidate a patent, the fight
becomes much harder. And not all demand letters are unfair assertions of
patent rights, some are legitimate. It's important to find out what other
similarly situated businesses plan to do, but that doesn't mean you won't end
up settling.

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mnx
I don't want to pick nits too much, but no https?

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ideaphore
On it. Will switch over.

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josaka
Joint defense groups are great for saving money on these things.

Having been in several, I've noticed a few areas to navigate carefully. It's
worth making sure that everyone is comfortable with the strategy. Assuming the
group tries to kill the patent, the acts of the group may limit what the
individuals can do later in their defense, e.g., a weak group effort could
prevent an individual from later asserting certain invalidity grounds. See
e.g., part e of
[https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/35/315](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/35/315).
On the other hand, often some group members don't want to pay their share for
a gold-plated attack, e.g., those on a tighter budget or with less exposure.

I wouldn't let that deter me, though, from seeking a joint defense group. This
seems like a great idea.

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ideaphore
That's sage advice right there. Would love to chat more, if you have the time.
You know where to find us.

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pascalxus
This looks like a great product. Perhaps there's a lot of potential for add-on
services, that might reduce the hefty 2million$ cost of litigation.

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ideaphore
Indeed. In fact, filing an inter-partes review, something our partner Hard-IP
is very good at, is significantly cheaper than litigation in federal court.
Also, with a large enough joint defense group, we may be able to negotiate
arbitration or mediation (we would recommend baseball style mediation).

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cloudjacker
Nice, should make one of these for bittorrent swarms too!

If you haven't didn't seed, or didn't seed the whole file, it would be easy to
tear apart the case. One federal court circuit created "contributory copyright
infringement", which is not a creature of the legislation at all, but even
that is on weak legs, assuming you ever got to court.

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ideaphore
That's an interesting idea. But it doesn't quite translate because each
individual copyright infringement case has its own facts, you either did it or
not. With patent infringement, the validity of the patent affects every
potential plaintiff the same way. But it's something to consider in the
future. Thanks.

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gnu8
Is this idea patented? It might be a trap.

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ideaphore
Admiral Ackbar? Is that you?

