Agreed -- it would be a service to the community that helped connect them if they could share some approaches / advice for others in a future similar situation!
I could discuss it with Andrew, but every case will be unique and necessitate its own approach. If I could make one suggestion for anyone dealing with a software patent issue, from my crash-course, is to look into Alice (2014)[1] under Section 101, and review any similar cases, especially by the same entity. You can download case documents pretty cheaply and learn a lot. I paid like 15c a page, and seeing the docket is free. Take the curiosity you have for computers and apply it to the legal system. It's inputs and outputs. But don't go too deep and put your business on the bench. Move the needle a little each day but know you have some time and don't rush into any decisions. Ultimately it's not the end of the world and life will go on.
Thank you. I have not personally been served, I found out about it via emails from two different patent attorney firms offering their services, with the lawsuit attached as a courtesy. The lawsuit looks legit to me. I live in Tahoe so don't get mail but will check today and also check with my registered agent in Reno.
Can you recommend me a patent attorney? Any idea on how much this could cost?
Wow, that's a (really sleazy) angle I haven't heard of before. I wouldn't respond (at all) to any unsolicited e-mails from random groups offering their "services" in this matter. This sounds almost like a patent version of the car warranty scam - "Warning - this is our last notice. You may be responsible for all repairs!" Yeah, ok...
Unfortunately the patent attorneys I've worked with are in very large international firms with a price tag that goes along with that. I can provide some recommendations but I suspect (and please don't take this the wrong way) they won't be of much use to you.
Basically an NPE files a lot of lawsuits at once, legal companies are monitoring the lawsuits and will proactively reach out to potential customers.
In my case the firms that reached out were mostly tier one national law firms and they were very familiar with the NPE. And like the OP I was unaware of the lawsuit because they served our corporate agent in Delaware. So it was quite useful.
You need to see if you have been served, as it’ll require a signature, not just something in the mail.
It’s patent so you can’t file an anti slapp, but until you have been properly served you need to find hearing dates and BE THERE, and demand a dismissal based on improper service. The court will almost always dismiss it, have you served right then and there but it does drag the clock.
Also get a lawyer don’t listen to strange people like me on the internet. Most likely it’ll involve some posturing and mediation or a settlement.
Also what will happen is your lawyer will send them a request to serve them on your behalf. It’s only the beginning. Things drag slow for months then speed and slow down.
The case details does not detail an asking amount. I could post the case details here if people think that's a good idea. I suppose it's public information anyway.
DO NOT do this. You probably also should have used a throwaway account and provided a lot less detail on the scenario. If your adversary finds this post (they likely will) your position and options are at a significant disadvantage.
You specifically need a patent/IP lawyer. Someone else mentioned the EFF. You might also try the Software Freedom Law Center. They're specifically focused on open source but they might be able to point you in an appropriate direction.
Président of FFII.org here, we received several requests from small companies here in Europe. You can contact me at zoobab at gmail.com. We are now busy with the 3rd attempt to impose software patents in the EU via the UPC.
I've never worked with a lawyer before. How do I pick one? Should I pick one in my state - Nevada? Should I post the case details here? I guess I was hoping someone on HN had a connection or is an IP lawyer themself, as I have no idea how to pick a lawyer and no idea how much this could cost.
First challenge on any and all lawsuits is diversity. Since you are the one being sued it better be Nevada, otherwise your lawyer will answer with a diversity challenge saying you don’t do business where it was filed and ask for the case to be moved.
Get ready for so many continuances and discovery requests. Do not delete anything, purposeful deletions can be taken as an admission of guilt.
But I’m clearly not your lawyer or a lawyer just someone who has been sued.
They always want to settle for precedent. Prior art is a harder thing than it should be, but you better find out everyone else they sued and make contact, assuming they aren’t gagged.
Sadly courts don’t slammed down enough people as vexatious litigants, so here we are.
I work with a firm that has IP lawyers, they are mediocre and very expensive. I recommend calling local private practice IP lawyers and briefly describe your situation and ask for a 2 hour consult. Speak with as many as possible and hire the one who seems the most helpful.
- Monitor (with Bugsnag) and fix all errors/exceptions like its your religion. No new feature dev if there's an open bug. Write tests.
- Use Heroku. Monitor metrics to ensure you don't have major performance issues
- Use Datadog. Datadog can monitor and fix many things (web request queue too big -> trigger lambda function to scale up Heroku dynos, Worker queue latency too high -> same thing, scale up worker dynos, memory swapping -> restart dyno).
- Spend a lot of time fine tuning your logging, and custom metrics in Datadog. Makes investigating much more pleasurable.
- Any issues or exception notifications route to a #devops channel in my slack. Other slack channels include signups, business metrics, daily revenue reports, etc
- If something ever happens where you had to intervene to fix it, do a real post-mortem with yourself and try to come up with a way for that to never be a problem again.
I also do a lot of remote camping & off-roading without internet. I'm working on a simple little app where I can get paged on my satellite messenger (Garmin Inreach) if something is wrong, and key clients can also ping me. Only trusted contacts can SMS the Garmin Inreach, so I would use Twilio as the communication pipe.
And I've pre-ordered Starlink. My off road truck has an elaborate electrical system (Lithium battery, solar, etc) and I plan to find a way to run the Starlink dish off 12v.
Currently working on my home backup plan, which includes hot-standy Mac mini, time machine and cloud backups, home battery backup generator (Ecoflow Delta), Starlink, portable generator, etc.
Thanks, I will email you. Not a bad idea on the accountant, but finding (a good) one is indeed the hard part. How do I even vet that? I hate "hiring" for something I don't know a lot about. As for tax benefits, my understanding is I will save ~4,500 on self-employment taxes (because I pay myself 100k... $130k-100=30 difference... social security caps at around $130k), plus no longer pay medicare 2.9% on anything past 100k. Additional taxes include state payroll things like UI, but it's not a lot. So it could be worth $10,000+ in saved taxes to be an S-Corp instead of a Sole-prop.... was my conclusion.
I'm so excited for Starlink! As a solo founder I do all of my support, but I like to frequently go off-roading and camping outside of cell service. I have a satellite messenger for critical things, but it still leaves me feeling quite anxious to go on extended trips. If I can toss a starlink dish in a briefcase and get fast affordable internet in the Sierra's, life will be good.
I wanted to move to rural OR/WA a couple of years ago, but couldn't find a single property with high-speed internet. This is (hopefully) a game-changer.
You didn't look hard enough - for example big chunks of rural Okanogan county are covered by WISP services from a company called NCI. Same in many other areas.
I work remote now (well I run my own software co), and with nothing tying me down I settled on San Diego a few years ago. Love it here, but it's very expensive (looking to buy soon) and I miss the mountains (and green stuff)... so I'm planning to move to Tahoe as soon as the restrictions lift.
