Some interesting ideas in this thread... couple of points re: the above:
- clients are all over, not just SF. Like I said all it takes is just a simple online store for the trolls to come after you, i.e. it's not just software developers getting sued. It's also their clients.
- don't hold your breath about the law changing. The goal here should really be invalidating software patents lock, stock, and barrel - that's not something likely to happen anytime soon.
- the non-profit idea is a good one. If enough companies contributed 1% of revenue/profit/funds raised to an effort like this one, it could probably get going... I personally wish I had the time to organize something like this.
The people who would be interested in this are the VCs themselves, as their portfolio companies are at risk in aggregate. Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if there are ad hoc anti-troll legal teams associated with the major VCs already. But the key is reducing the cost to fight, and the cost will only go down with scale, and no VC has a large enough portfolio, I'd imagine, to really get the cost down
> If enough companies contributed 1% of revenue/profit/funds raised
I think you're overestimating how much companies spend on patent litigation. People have been throwing around the number $100 million for how much Apple spent on patent litigation in 2011. That's 0.1% of their 2011 revenues. At a typical Fortune 1000-ish company, total spending on outside counsel (which includes not just litigation, but transactional advice, tax advice, etc) is on the order of 0.2% of revenues.
- clients are all over, not just SF. Like I said all it takes is just a simple online store for the trolls to come after you, i.e. it's not just software developers getting sued. It's also their clients.
- don't hold your breath about the law changing. The goal here should really be invalidating software patents lock, stock, and barrel - that's not something likely to happen anytime soon.
- the non-profit idea is a good one. If enough companies contributed 1% of revenue/profit/funds raised to an effort like this one, it could probably get going... I personally wish I had the time to organize something like this.