Patent Trolls Threaten to Bankrupt Companies and Stifle Innovation
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Without patent reform, Living Direct might have to file for bankruptcy, said Mark Baker, its general counsel.
The online retailer, founded in 2000 now has 60 employees, and faces multiple “patent troll” lawsuits which threaten to drain it of all of its cash, Baker told a seven-person panel Thursday morning meeting on patent reform at HomeAway’s headquarters in downtown Austin.
“As soon as we were listed as one of the fastest growing retailers in the country, we became the target of eight trolls,” he said.
And it’s not just Living Direct, the problem is endemic to online retailers, software companies and others in the technology industry.
Julie Huls, president of the Austin Technology Council, moderated the panel with Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), Johnathan Greenberg, general counsel of Freescale, Ross Buhrdorf, chief technology officer of HomeAway, Josh Baer, chief innovation officer of Return Path and co-founder of Capital Factory, Alan Schoenbaum, general counsel of Rackspace Hosting and Derek Willis, general counsel of Volusion.
Sen. Cornyn listened to stories of Texas technology companies struggling to deal with patent trolls, which are businesses that largely exist simply to extort payments from companies for meaningless patents.
“This is a threat not only to the innovation these businesses create but also to our prosperity and our economy,” Cornyn said.
Read original articleTags: Mark Baker, patent reform, patent troll, patent trolls, Sen. John Cornyn
