Ask HN: Much bigger competitor infringing startup's pending patents

5 points by alfredallan 8 years ago | 7 comments

Is there a viable strategy for this sort of scenario? I'm at a place that has an exciting MVP now in a rather successful public beta. We just noticed a (very) large competitor copying off our product (including/especially the patented bit). We're an ecommerce shop and the pending patent in question is an utility patent for a particular bit of functionality - we've sought 2nd and 3rd legal opinions which concur the validity of the patent.

Bottom line: what strategies can we adopt to fend this off?

trcollinson 8 years ago |

I am not a lawyer, this isn't legal advice, and getting advice from random internet strangers like myself is stupid.

But! With all that said, here's some advice. If you have a patent pending and you reasonably believe you will get the utility patent, allow BigCo to infringe it. Do not lawyer up more than is needed in order to get your patent from pending to issued. Now, start to sell your product with your patent pending technology.

At the same time, use this as an advertising technique. "Our technology is so good, others are stealing it." "We're better than the rest, that's why they have to try to steal out technology." "The original, and still the best."

Now, of course, make sure you are actually better than BigCo. Make sure your service is better. Make sure you provide the better product. Make sure you are winning the competition game. Remember, you have a pending patent. What can BigCo do? Use their stupidity to your advantage.

Sell. Sell. Sell.

alfredallan 8 years ago | |

We already have legal advice. While advice from random strangers ought to be take with a pack of salt, random strangers have little vested interest in the topic and nothing to lose plus a very fresh perspective. Hence there's a likelihood of unbiased (if a tad uninformed) opinions.

So the things you say, and danieltillet says, are basically the things I'm looking for. And I hope more folks chime in too, particularly if they've experienced situations like this.

We are indeed starting to double/treble down on sales (thanks for the little "slogans" too). The majority opinion leans towards a fight, since for each seller we have BigCo has 100-1000. Their scale can let them get away with a cheap knockoff that mostly replicates the functionality but lacks in UI/UX. And I'm sure you know sellers are more interested in the scale, margins, etc. of a platform. So while we can take the market, it might have to be off more than just 1-2 patents.

Besides, there's always the hope that a court side with David rather than Goliath. And if they don't, and we lose the appeals too, we end up where we started and can only outsell them. And if we can survive long enough to win, we might as well get paid for lost revenues.

danieltillett 8 years ago |

Lawyer up. Asking HN for advice on this topic is not optimal.

alfredallan 8 years ago | |

That's also what the founder instinctively suggests. I don't disagree. But my posting here stems from certain concerns: 1. BigCo can easily outlawyer us 2. Tangentially related to 1, BigCo is likely to own a classic 'portfolio' which could be unleashed on us. While many individual patents in the portfolio might be of dubious validity, fighting them off will be a very expensive game.

danieltillett 8 years ago | | |

You are probably not going to like what I am going to tell you, but as a small company fighting a large company with lawyers you will lose even if you are in the right. The big company will out spend and delay you until your money runs out.

In my opinion the best you can hope for is to be credible enough pain that it is cheaper and easier to buy you out rather than fight you. Rather than fight directly look for the soft underbelly.

alfredallan 8 years ago | |

Reason I posted here (with a throwaway account) was I hoped (based on the crowd here, and certain comments I'd seen in the past alluding to related first/second hand experiences) to hear from someone who had encountered this sort of situation before.