Week 8 Blog #1: Advice on How to Beat a Patent Troll

Chris Hulls, the chief executive officer of the family networking and communication service, Life360, and a UC Berkeley alumni, recently posted a piece on TechCrunch recounting his tale with dealing with a lawsuit brought forward against his company by Advanced Ground Information Systems Inc. for patent infringement. Under their interpretation of the patents, any company that showed a location marker on a map or connects a group of people using location-sharing capabilities on smartphones could be infringing. Refusing to settle, Mr. Hulls took AGIS to federal court, where a jury returned a verdict of non-infringement against Hulls and Life360. In the article, Mr. Hulls provides three non-traditional methods his company undertook against the troll.

1. Go Nuclear
Trolls expect companies to listen to their lawyers, stay quiet, and pay them to go away. By publicizing the role of trolls in a case through various mediums, trolls and their law firms become fearful for their own reputation and hesitate about proceeding further with a case or possibly launching future lawsuits.

2. Share Information and Resources
To help other companies facing AGIS, Hulls open-sourced all of the prior art collected with the tech community and announced free legal support for other startups with less than $25 million in funding facing AGIS. These forms of action draw attention to a case and the claims brought forward by trolls such as AGIS while also sending a message to trolls that the players within any industry is committed to sticking together rather than fighting independently.

3. Go With Your Gut and Commit To It
While some advisors will encourage companies to settle, this short term view will only weaken the long term stance of the company. You are far less likely to become a target if you have a prior record of making it difficult for the troll versus paying up each time.

While litigation is expensive, these hardline measures send a message to trolls and keep them at bay.