Ask HN: A different approach to ending Patent Trolls

2 points by dylanbathurst 12 years ago | 2 comments

I know patent trolls are a hot topic on the internet right now, and there are really great initiatives like http://fixpatents.org/ that are taking the fight right to the government, but it seems like things rarely (or too slowly) get fixed when the government is involved. I've been trying to think of a different way of approaching the problem. HTML 5 has badges you can put on your site pledging that you support a forward thinking web (http://www.w3.org/html/logo/). Patagonia created "1% for the Planet" (http://onepercentfortheplanet.org/) publicly pledging they will donate 1% of their profits to environmental causes.

Could it work to approach software patents the same way? Maybe a public pledge or badge on your startup's site saying that you will never participate in patent trolling. If you put the badge on your site, you will be listed on a central site of all awesome companies making the pledge. If you make the pledge and then go back on your word, then the people of the internet will publicly shame you. What does HN think?

gregcohn 12 years ago |

Twitter has made this announcement:https://blog.twitter.com/2012/introducing-innovators-patent-...

I haven't seen too many others following suit.

My guess is it's similar to putting land development rights into an environmental conservancy -- if binding on a company, it impacts its valuation.

dylanbathurst 12 years ago | |

Ah, that's pretty cool. When I worked at Zappos/Amazon they had a similar approach to patents. They patented a lot of our code, but promised to only use it for defensive purposes. Which makes sense because we got sued a lot.