[duxup]

I understand how 'find a lawyer' is less than helpful but isn't your advice just 'find a lawyer ... that your competitors suggest'. Competitors who by default do not have your best interests in mind.

Is there any real difference / likelihood of a good outcome there?

Ultimately I see little difference in the potential of "most lawyers will happily take your money without necessarily having an expedient path to resolution for a small one-person company".

[dmabram]

Probably because you haven't dealt with many lawyers :-). Yes, there's a huge difference. The advice is geared towards finding a lawyer who can achieve an optimal outcome at lowest cost. Any competent IP attorney can accept the case. The difference in cost is multiple orders of magnitude.

At worst some of your competitors will ignore your request. But like I said, I have been through similar situations. Without delving into too many details, I had competitors who had no reason to help go so far beyond just a referral that years later I am still grateful. Once you've been burned by one of these trolls, you have a bit of a bond with other victims I guess.

[dahart]

There is a huge world of difference between cold calling lawyers from the phone book and getting a referral to someone who’s dealt with the same situation and had the outcome you seek. This becomes clear if you ever try to ‘find a lawyer’ without guidance.

> Competitors who by default do not have your best interests in mind.

FWIW ‘competitors’ are not enemies or out to sink you in all but the most extreme cases. Two things that are definitely a bigger danger to a small startup are: yourself, and patent trolls.

[mh8h]

In the case of a patent troll, the competitors are probably also on the future target list. It's in their interest to help fight this troll.

[matmann2001]

I know it's just TV, but this situation played out differently on Silicon Valley. Instead, the competitors hopped to the front of the line to pay off the patent troll before a successful case emboldened the troll to raise their price. Has anyone actually heard of things playing out this way in reality?

[jusssi]

I wonder if paying the troll wouldn't just get them more trolls, now that they appear to be a soft target?

[duxup]

Or they already paid / cut a deal...

This idea that they might care is just an assumption.

[fencepost]

isn't your advice just 'find a lawyer ... that your competitors suggest'. Competitors who by default do not have your best interests in mind.

Just because you're nominally competitors serving the same market doesn't mean you can't work nicely together. In many cases the true competition is 'people who don't understand how much they need our products.'

[Rantenki]

In this case, your competitors DO have your best interests in mind. They have to understand that they are next on the list of troll targets, since they are offering a product that likely uses similar technologies.

[duxup]

Unless they already made a deal or hope that it drives their competitor out of business while they deal with it on their own.

There's no reason to assume they'll be cooperative.