Far-L

Oy vey.

There is so much misunderstanding and outright obliviousness in this thread it is staggering. People need to re-read your original post.

As someone who spent seven years in patent litigation, eventually winning against a notorious firm of patent trolls, I can give you my professional opinion although I am not an attorney.

First, if you are in a tech business start up then you should be concerned with patents from day one, both from a defensive and offensive standpoint.

If you are developing something that might infringe on someone's patent, which is hard to know because Patent Trolls are notorious for "interpreting" their patent's prior art to try and prove you are infringing, then you need to know what you are doing and where there might be issues.

Also, if you have something that you develop that you can potentially patent then you have a lot more protection against problems like patent trolls regardless of whether or not you choose to prosecute it for licensing opportunities yourself.

Patent attorneys are not cheap so the more research you can put into understanding the prior art and where there may or may not be patents you might be infringing is time well spent. Better to know than to be blindsided by litigation that can cripple your new biz.

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