Law Students Fend Off a Patent Troll.

How a handful of Brooklyn Law students forced a patent troll to drop a meritless lawsuit.

The engineers at CarShield, a connected-car startup, were working on their trip-route optimization features when a patent troll interrupted their day. This troll didn’t bother sending a demand letter, it just filed a lawsuit. No prior notification. This was odd, as the plaintiff — 911 Notify, LLC — claimed to own a patent on notifications. The notification CarShield did eventually receive was an offer to settle the lawsuit for $250,000. They were shocked.

Startups in this situation are trapped between a rock and a hard-place. They can either pay off the troll (unsavory) or defend the lawsuit (expensive). Many startups decide to hold their nose and pay the trolls. Everyone would prefer to defend the lawsuit, but not everyone can afford the cost of defense. This is why we started using law school clinics to do free legal defense. It’s a win-win arrangement: students cut their teeth on real litigation, startups get free legal defense, and patent trolls get nothing.

Brooklyn Law School’s BLIP clinic tried it last semester, and was fairly successful in getting a patent troll lawsuit dismissed. I’ll tell you a little about the clinic, the case, and how other law schools can do similar work.

The BLIP Clinic

Professor Jonathan Askin operates the Brooklyn Law School BLIP clinic like a law firm. Students sign up clients and perform basic legal work like forming companies, reviewing contracts and filing trademarks. Defending a patent lawsuit is not basic legal work. Its risky, complex and involves hundreds of hours of legal research and writing.

BLIP was fortunate to have an exceptional student running the defense team. Maegan Fuller, a 3rd year student, organized the defense, wrote the briefs, and negotiated with the troll. BLIP also had Jorge Torres, a former litigator at Skadden and Fish & Richardson, providing informal guidance on high-level litigation strategy.

As the clinic advisor, I was the lawyer signing off on final drafts before filing them with the court.