wsr

Thanks for sharing madcaptenor! Very interesting to know this!

I have friends who have gone through this experience. I was pretty surprised too that the company was willing to pay so much to defend their patents. Granted... my friend's rate was fairly reasonable... I think between $500-$1000/hour in probably the early 2000s.

It really depends on the patent in the end of the day. If a company can potentially lose tens or hundreds of millions over a lost lawsuit, spending a million on legal defense would be very reasonable.

I have not talked to my employer about this. I wanted to get some collective wisdom from the HN community before approaching them. But yeah, I'll definitely give it a shot. It doesn't hurt to ask.

Thanks for the long reply patio11.

I can see where you are coming from, and I wouldn't be surprised if the same argument is used by the company. If that is the case. O well, I wish them well but I would never be this naive again.

There is just one point that you might have missed.

The patent work doesn't stop the moment you finish filing. In fact, almost all valuable patents will be challenged in court, which can cost a LOT of money. In those cases, the company would have to hire back the original inventors to defend them in court, for which the original inventors can charge almost an arbitrary amount of money for.

In my personal opinion, it would not be wise for the company to argue over pocket change amount of money if it risks destroying the relationship between the company and the inventor. If that is really the case, when the day comes that the company needs help, the inventor would not hesitate to charge exorbitant fee just to spite the company. I honestly believe this is why @smoyer in the other comment is still getting paid by his company even though he is no longer employed.

Last but not least, on a human level, I feel it is a bit unfair given how much extra I worked for these patents, above and beyond my call of duty. I'm not going to cry over it but it will leave me in a pretty bad mood. If I end up getting screwed over, well... let my experience serve as a lesson for rest of the aspiring inventors in similar situation in the future.

Interesting! At least there is one case that the company is doing the right thing. Thanks for sharing smoyer!

Good point! I'll check to see if any of my friends can get me a copy of the patent policy.

I wonder how legal it is in the state of California to bar the people from getting their reward simply because they are no longer with the company. Patent approval has nothing to do with the employment status. This seems a bit unfair to be honest.

Further, they specifically asked me for help AFTER I left the company. I agreed to help as a good-will gesture. I wish I could've clarified the reward policy back then.

As these hacks are becoming more common place, I'd love to hear fellow HN reader's take on their password strategy/management. Many thanks in advance!

Can you please elaborate on what you mean?

This is a very good question. I really hope someone with domain knowledge answers it.

This might be a silly question, but why was there a fork in the first place? The article wasn't as clear on explaining that part. Can someone else elaborate on that part?

As a fellow serial entrepreneur, it seems to me that between success, sleep, and living the life, you can only pick 2 out of the three.