[studentrob]

Blocking business seems like an unusual step, or at least we rarely hear about it in the news. Is there any precedent for a patent case successfully blocking a business whose service is all on a website? If so, what happened? Did they simply take over the domain? What if a business used a foreign owned domain?

I feel like there are options here that may not have been tried. Presumably a patent troll could try to tell your payment service and US based servers not to do business with you, but I haven't heard of that either, aside from credit card companies blocking Wikileaks and the US govt seizing servers suspected of hosting illegal stuff. I forgot why the US govt seized servers in VA a few years back but the point is that is pretty unusual too and I wonder how far a patent troll would go or how difficult it would be for them to get through all that.

The only way China blocks Facebook, for example, is through a massive firewall, and their businesses generally don't accept any foreign credit cards. The US seems unlikely to put in a huge firewall or modify DNSs to go after small businesses for patent trolls..

[rfctr]

Wikileaks blockade is a good example of the power that can be used when parties fail to come to an agreement.

Most companies though prefer to settle out of court because the court is quite a gambling, that's why we do not hear it more often.

[studentrob]

Wikileaks is based in Sweden and was seen as threatening by the US govt.

Companies that settle out of court are, from what I have read, small to medium sized US based companies that can face legal action if they do nothing.

What I am talking about is a small company that is foreign based in a place that does not comply with US patents. Has there been one that has ignored US patents and been shut down by having their domain blocked or their US payments disallowed?

[rfctr]

In other words, is being small & poor a good defense against trolls? Yes, it is.

Try to get bigger though or get a investment round, and troll will come after you.

It is not a coincidence that the company in the article's got trolls about the same time it's got an investment.