[rkalla]

  > In this case, it's less so that it's a "hipster artist", 
  but it's more that he's a "douchebag artist" with a 
  bullshit patent. Bullshit patents cost all of us money by 
  distracting people from doing awesome stuff.

All you did was validate my point (as annoyed is that is going to make you)... this sentence is dripping with preconceptions about both the person trying to assert their patent and the patent itself, neither of which I assume you are intimately familiar with.

If I took the identical scenario and replaced "douchebag artist" with Sergey Brin or Steve Jobs and left all other facts the same (the same patent, the same timeline, the same lawsuit) this discussion looks A LOT different.

Now you have people asserting the patent validity and how it overlaps with X and infringes on Y, but with some easily dismissable artist at the helm, most people have the same response you do -- shove him into a socially defined box and throw it all out the window as bullshit antics of some random douchebag wearing a hemp necklace.

All of these discussions are bullshit - they produce nothing except strife and accomplish nothing.

[phillmv]

No. I for one would be comfortable describing those people as douchebags as well.

Larry Ellison, for instance – widely considered a douchebag.

I can't speak for others, but I'm fairly certain the issue are bullshit patents.

>All of these discussions are bullshit - they produce nothing except strife and accomplish nothing.

Complaining is human, and it allows us to get a measure of everyone else's opinions. If you removed griping from HN you wouldn't have much else left.