Online tech store Newegg.com, which has become something of a patent troll fighter extraordinaire, is selling anti-troll T-shirts to raise money to help fight bad patents.
The shirts play on the classic children’s story The Three Billy Goats Gruff, depicting an egg riding a goat and butting a troll in the rear end, pushing it off a bridge. Surrounding the picture are the words: “Don’t Settle. Settling Feeds Trolls.”
Patent trolls—the pejorative term for companies that buy up patents and then assert them against businesses—generally hope their targeted companies will just agree to pay for a license rather than litigate. But Newegg has successfully beaten numerous trolls in court (though there have been defeats, too), and the company’s chief legal officer, Lee Cheng, has been outspoken about the need to stop such trolls from hurting small companies that can’t defend themselves.
“Trolls are giving us a wide berth now, but we want to stay in the fight,” Cheng told CorpCounsel.com. “We are offended that these trolls are targeting small and medium-size businesses, like podcasters and app developers, who can’t afford litigation, so we’re going to use the money we raise to target a bad patent and invalidate it.”
This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.
To view this content, please continue to their sites.
Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law are third party online distributors of the broad collection of current and archived versions of ALM's legal news publications. LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law customers are able to access and use ALM's content, including content from the National Law Journal, The American Lawyer, Legaltech News, The New York Law Journal, and Corporate Counsel, as well as other sources of legal information.
For questions call 1-877-256-2472 or contact us at [email protected]
