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The Patent Scam Intro

Austin Meyer · commentary · Watch on YouTube

Law, policing & justiceSoftware practice, open source & careersStartups & entrepreneurship

What it is

Austin Meyer, developer of the X-Plane flight simulator, explains how he was sued by a patent troll over a trivial claim about an app's license server. He walks through how the shell-company litigation works and why ignoring the suit makes things worse.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN commenters pass it around as an eye-opening first-hand account of patent trolling and the Texas courts that favor it.

  • 6 people recommended it
  • 6 different months
  • 2 strong recommendations
  • first 2016, last 2022

What HN commenters said

  1. “Just watched The Patent Scam video by Austin Meyer (developer of X-Plane flight sim who was sued by patent trolls).”

    X-Plane developer recounts being sued by patent trolls

    rdtsc, 2016-08 · Strong recommendation · in “Trollala – Fight patent trolls by banding together confidentially”

  2. “This video from Austin Meyer (creator of X-Plane) is pretty eye-opening”

    Two Texas judges whose lawyer sons handle patent cases before them

    clamprecht, 2017-03 · Strong recommendation · in “Supreme Court Considers Why Patent Trolls Favor Texas Courts”

  3. “It would be interesting to see emails dumped from these guys”

    Judge and son lawyer enabling patent troll litigation in Texas

    roflchoppa, 2016-10 · Recommendation · in “Apple loses patent retrial to the litigious VirnetX, ordered to pay $300M”

  4. “Short intro to how overbroad patents hurt small tech companies”

    dangerlibrary, 2017-05 · Recommendation · in “U.S. top court tightens patent suit rules in blow to ‘patent trolls’”

  5. “Above two YouTube videos I’ve been passing around”

    Explains peculiar US patent law and the eastern Texas district

    rixrax, 2019-02 · Recommendation · in “Apple to Close Stores in Eastern District of Texas to Fight Patent Trolls”

  6. “Just watched this video [1] by someone who got sued because his "android app uses a license server".”

    Developer sued over license server explains troll shell-company tactics

    zubspace, 2021-07 · Recommendation · in “Do patents kill innovation? The US patent office is asking”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: patent trolls, software patents, litigation, x-plane, eastern district of texas

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