It's an idea that has been floating around in my head for a while now, but due to time limitations, I have yet to implement it. What do you guys think.
Also, I'm not sure how prevalent it is, but there may be an opportunity for a business of being the go to firm for fighting these trolls. Like the article said, being familiar with the companies and the process makes it easier, and if you could be the go-to firm for fighting them, especially since you would become more desirable the more often you fight the same groups.
Under EU law one can register a color as a trademark, provided it's a distinguishing mark. I think that's fair. Deutsche Telekom have been using magenta on their outlets ever since they started, people think "Magenta" whenever the name is mentioned, and I guess even you would stop a second if another phone company painted their outlets that color.
A color can be a trademark: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_trademark
Many companies have trademarked colors.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_trademark and http://au.businessinsider.com/colors-that-are-trademarked-20...
The other 5 steps would seem pretty irrelevant as a defendant in the absence of the above resource.
The read sixth step is "have a million dollars you don't mind spending without getting anything back for it."
If you win a patent suit, you don't win anything. You're just out a million or two dollars for nothing. And it means the patent troll has to look through his portfolio to find another one to use for the next time he decides to blackmail you.
Maybe if more companies with some extra cash would do this scumbag trolls like Eileen Shapiro would think twice.
The settlement agreement should include an NDA.
"He then told us we had until the end of the day to settle the case or face criminal charges for harassment. We immediately notified the FBI of his extortion attempt."
That seems to indicate that the troll's lawyer was fairly incompetent; I don't think a competent lawyer would have made such a baseless and self-incriminating threat. A competent lawyer might have been much harder to beat if he didn't have a lawyer of his own.
Doing this with an attorney goes without saying. This isn't a jr league blog.
I probably would have at least consulted with an attorney before contacting the troll and the patent author though, just to be sure I wasn't somehow shooting myself in the foot or limiting my future options.
Am I missing something or they haven't actually slaughtered their troll yet?
How hard would it be to just pass a law that stops these $&% pricks? Will this happen any time soon do you think?
vi hart on why we like 5 reasons videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cyw3ncjnH8
