[greenyoda]

I'm very surprised that nowhere in the article does the author advise someone in this position to get a lawyer. If I were being sued by a patent troll (or anyone else), the very first thing I'd do is hire competent legal counsel and let them communicate on my behalf. Not being a lawyer myself, I don't know how to figure out whether the troll's suit is frivolous or not, and I don't know whether some offhand remark I might make to their lawyer could get me in trouble. It's also possible that once the troll sees that I have a lawyer, they might just drop their suit and go after easier prey.

"He then told us we had until the end of the day to settle the case or face criminal charges for harassment. We immediately notified the FBI of his extortion attempt."

That seems to indicate that the troll's lawyer was fairly incompetent; I don't think a competent lawyer would have made such a baseless and self-incriminating threat. A competent lawyer might have been much harder to beat if he didn't have a lawyer of his own.

[radley]

"When a patent troll serves you with a lawsuit, you need to review the lawsuit as quickly as possible to determine if your company is infringing the patent referenced in the lawsuit."

Doing this with an attorney goes without saying. This isn't a jr league blog.

[jakejake]

Getting an attorney is probably excellent advice, but I don't think it hurts anything to do research on your own as well so that you can get some idea of what the patent is about and whether you might actually be legally infringing.

I probably would have at least consulted with an attorney before contacting the troll and the patent author though, just to be sure I wasn't somehow shooting myself in the foot or limiting my future options.