"A few casual emails later and my new patent lawyer warned me that I might be unable to apply for a patent in certain important countries if I sell the app before filing an application.."
That's what people that make a living with the patents system will do.. they will convice you how patents are important, and make you fear to not have any patents..
I did'nt see any conceptual explanation for why he is filling for patents.. only that his moved by fear and bad advices from actors that have something to gain for making people like him, entering into this game
Also let my say that this is a bad strategy for a underdog..
because the base crowd for a underdog is the "green" folks.. hipsters, geeks, etc..
This crowd is very sensitive to this sort of things these days.. much more well-educated than the previous generations.. and they are the opinion leaders that can give a sustainable growth to a underdog..
Of course, there are curious people that will download it, and say "cool!!", but then, another app-dujour will beg for attention, and they will just move away..
The evangelizer type is very important, and they probably will move away once they are aware of the patent game.. unless of course instead of a cosmetic innovation you did a really important innovation.. something that everybody needs.. than people can just be arrogant and do whatever they want.. but for underdogs this is a risky game to play
As I said in my post, I definitely thought long and hard about the implications of applying for such a patent. Your points were definitely at the forefront of my thinking.
In the end, I concluded that Loren Brichter's pull to refresh patent proved rather valuable, so I might as well not close the door on such an opportunity myself.
of course, some mogul like google could get interested, and because of the patent, will be forced to acquihire him.. than he can live a confortable life somewhere.. but in the end, this game only privilege the big ones.. so they can have control over innovation and platforms.. :/
I think he's just playing the game as the rules are written right now. He doesn't have to like patents to know that they are currently one of the best ways to protect himself. I'm not a fan of the current system, but if I found myself in a similar position, I'd certainly review my options as well.
I'm not sure what you mean by protect himself here. What does he protect himself from?
If you mean he protects himself from people 'taking' his idea, then he clearly doesn't hate software patents because that's what they achieve. What do you hate about them if you want this protection?
If you mean he protects himself from someone else patenting the same idea, filing a patent doesn't do this. As long as he has his ducks in a row to demonstrate that his work constitutes prior art (which he might have to do anyways if, say facebook comes out and tries to patent what sounds like a similar idea). Realistically, the odds that, against a larger competitor, he wouldn't have to go through the same process either way (a legal battle and/or settlement) seem strikingly low to me.
If you mean he can play the defensive patent shell game and cross-license to settle, one patent won't really do that unless you pool in with an NPE that collects patents, and that also seems rather contrary to the idea of hating software patents.
