Patent Trolls, SparkFun, and Why the USPTO’s New Rules Could Make Things Worse
If you’ve been following SparkFun for a little while, you know we’ve had our fair share of patent trolls over the years.
Back in 2021, we found ourselves in the crosshairs of a Texas-based entity called Altair Logix, which claimed SparkFun infringed on a 1998 patent for a “Media Processing Unit.” The kicker? The product in question was the pcDuino, a product we stopped selling in 2017, after moving just 221 units. Altair Logix demanded royalties for a patent that had arguably expired and covered concepts that were pretty basic in the tech community - the fun read is here if you’re interested.
The tl;dr version on the follow-up to this situation is we won because they couldn’t shake us down and they dropped the case (another fun read!). But the reality is we still lost - why? We spent countless hours defending ourselves and it cost us $12,645. Time and money we could have spent creating real value for our business vs someone essentially stealing it from us.
The is is a good example of how patent trolls try to exploit weaknesses in the U.S. patent system to basically extort you and it seems it may get worse. Currently, the USPTO is proposing new rules that would effectively end the public’s ability to challenge bad patents and encourage more trolling like this.
What can you do to help?
Tell the USPTO that the public has the right to challenge bad patents. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has provided sample language you can use on their site. Once you know what you want to say, you can make a formal comment on regulations.gov.
