[aristus]

I'm a little cautious about this post. He is exaggerating by stretching the definition of "patent troll", if I am reading correctly. A true patent troll is a company that produces nothing except lawsuits. With a company that produces something and also sues over patents, there is at least the possibility of a countersuit / crosslicense / armed truce.

I assume their portfolio companies pool their patents together for the common defense. If not, that might be a good idea.

Still, with 26 portfolio companies, he's claiming 8-ish concurrent lawsuit threats... that's alarming. On the other hand, their portfolio is pretty high-profile (Etsy, Twitter, Zynga, Foursquare, Indeed, etc).

Also he doesn't put this claim in historical context: is this normal for a maturing (and very nice) portfolio? Are they going after the tender young startups or the bigger ones?

[decode]

"With a company that produces something and also sues over patents, there is at least the possibility of a countersuit / crosslicense / armed truce."

Unless you're a startup that just wants to make a good product and isn't interested in spending tens of thousands of dollars acquiring patents on software you think shouldn't even be patented in the first place. Then you have no defense. You also don't have the funds for a protracted legal battle, since you're living on investment capital, or are barely profitable.

[aristus]

I'm not arguing anything about the validity or wisdom of patents. I'm saying the poster (a VC) left out a lot of pertinent information and using the term "patent troll" incorrectly.

It's an interesting item but wrapped in self-serving omission and linkbaity style.