Cloudflare rallies the troops to fight off another so-called patent troll
Nearly four years ago, we wrote about a battle between Cloudflare, the San Francisco-based internet security and performance company, and Blackbird Technologies, a firm that quickly amassed dozens of patents, then began using them to file dozens of patent infringement lawsuits against companies, including Cloudflare.
The suit was typical in every way, except how Cloudflare responded to it. Unlike many targets of similar lawsuits that opt to settle, Cloudflare fought back, asking very publicly for help in locating prior art that would not only invalidate the broad patent that Blackbird was using to sue Cloudflare, but to invalidate all of Blackbird’s patents. The public answered the call, and two years and 275 unique submissions later, the case against Cloudflare was dismissed and Blackbird’s operations were diminished.
Project Jengo Redux: Cloudflare s Prior Art Search Bounty Returns
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Cloudflare rallies the troops to fight off another so-called patent troll
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In
The Princess Bride, the character of Vizzini famously says: Ha ha, you fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous of which is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: Never go in against a Sicilian when DEATH is on the line. I don t know if it s surpassed either of those yet, but quickly moving up the list would be Never try to patent troll Cloudflare. Apparently, the patent troll Sable Networks has just made exactly that blunder.
About a decade ago, the online retailer Newegg pioneered the strategy of attacking back on patent trolls. The entire patent trolling business model is based on the fact that it is almost always cheaper to settle a patent trolling case than to fight it and win. A full patent trial will cost over a million dollars easily, and sometimes multiples of that. But many patent trolls file a ton of lawsuits, hoping to settle each for well less than what it takes to fight in court. It