Operation Ninja S.T.A.R
About The Project
In 2013, Article One Partners, which is now part of RWS, approached me to consult on a crowdfunding campaign to fight patent trolls. Not only did I play a prominent role in developing the project’s scope and strategy, but I also wrote the script for, directed, and edited the campaign video and wrote copy for the project page.
Our idea was to create a database of evidence that could be used to debunk the patents used by trolls to attack startups. This would have allowed those being sued to defend themselves in court and dispute the legitimacy of the troll's patent.
While the campaign was ultimately unsuccessful, AOP was thrilled with my work, and the experience taught me that any subject, no matter how complex, can be explained in roughly 500 words.
The Situation
In early 2013, I got a message from someone working at a patent research firm called Article One Partners (AOP). They had discovered me through an article I wrote about the challenges I faced launching my StreetXSW Kickstarter project. Their company was just starting to work on a crowdfunding campaign to fight so-called patent trolls. A “patent troll” is a company that buys up old or unused software patents and then uses those patents to sue other businesses as a way of extorting money from them.
AOP wanted to run a crowdfunding campaign to raise awareness of the issue, contribute to the public good, and boost its brand. At the time, I knew nothing about the patent system, but I thought it would be an exciting challenge, so I agreed to work with them.
The Challenge
Initially, AOP wanted to raise funds to disprove the validity of a patent being used by a troll in court. They would be able to do this because AOP ran a network of patent researchers who worked to find what is called “prior art.” Since patents are supposed to be unique, if someone can find evidence that the ideas contained in the patent existed in the public domain before it was issued, the patent can be struck down.
The problem with this approach is that the cost of finding prior art and then invalidating the patent in court can reach well over $100,000. This is one of the main reasons patent trolls are so successful: It's cheaper to settle with them than to fight them. AOP was unsure how best to raise this much money, which is why they hired me.
The Solution
I knew from the research I had done for A Kickstarter's Guide that around 80% of projects raise $20,000 or less. I explained that raising over $100,000 for a project as complicated as patent reform would be extremely challenging, even if it was for a good cause.
Not wanting to abandon the project, I suggested that instead of trying to disprove patents in court, AOP could develop a database of prior art. The art in the database would be made freely available to any person or company being sued by a troll. While this wouldn’t invalidate any patents, we hope it would provide a significant deterrent to those companies who were trying to weaponize the patent system.
Structuring the project this way allowed us to lower the amount of money we were trying to raise to $17,500. Each multiple of that amount would allow us to research prior art for another patent.
With our project defined, we began work on the campaign. I helped AOP shoot the project video, develop rewards, and plan the launch. As we were getting everything ready, President Obama started talking about patent trolls, and this obscure topic was all over the news. We were all excited about the campaign’s potential and even had some big interviews lined up in major press outlets.
The Results
Then, due to forces beyond my control, the project was put on hold for several months. We were finally able to launch in December 2013, but by that point, we had lost all our momentum, and we could not raise the funds we needed. It was a bit of a letdown and a sad ending to a project we all believed could have had a big impact. Even though the campaign was unsuccessful, AOP was thrilled with my work, and the experience taught me that any subject, no matter how complex, can be explained in roughly 500 words.
If you are interested, you can check out the project page below.
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