How much should a startup worry about being sued for patent infringement?
Generally, it is worthwhile doing a preliminary patent search on your idea. If it is already patented, you may already be too late in the market you seek, and you might as well deal with that before you spend a lot of time and money reinventing the wheel. Patent suits are rarely the deciding factor in whether a startup succeeds or not. Founders should probably spend 100x as much time worrying about building something users won’t want, because that kills many more startups than patent problems. Until you’re successful, you won’t have to worry about random people suing you in the hope of getting money. And once you are successful, you’ll probably have one of them to deal with, valid or not. So the right plan for these suits is to file your patent early to head them off. Some people worry about competitor suits trying to scare them off, but this is another reason to file your own patent early. If you have nothing to patent, there may be little to stop competitors from overtaking you (low
