This is pretty much what we struggled with -- at one point, we thought about how dumb we would feel if we did everything we could to streamline the guy's workflow and then received one of his letters demanding payment.
That's another interesting place to draw the line, though -- self-preservation, or at least protection of your own industry. It's pretty compelling, although it still feels a bit odd to be protective of only one's own industry, while being okay with things that might be destructive to others. Hm.
That's another interesting place to draw the line, though -- self-preservation, or at least protection of your own industry.
Arguably this could be justified the same way you would justify refusing to support drug dealers, even though you disagree with the War on Some Drugs. Your only justification for turning down such business (as I understand it) is that you can't accept the risk of having the whole company shut down by law enforcement. Not many people would take you to task for that reasoning, I suspect, and it would be easy to dismiss those who do.
It's easy to argue that software patents carry the same existential threat as law enforcement would. At first blush it seems reasonable to write this into your TOS: I agree that I will not assert any patent claims as a non-practicing entity. I agree that my account with lessannoyingcrm.com will be terminated without recourse if I assert any such claims in a court of law, or threaten to do so.
The problem is, you've only narrowed your ethical dilemma -- you haven't eliminated it. What if the patent troll in question was instead offering to buy your company for 100x revenue? What if the patent troll in question was (e.g.) Google or Apple? Would you have the fortitude to tell them to pound sand then? Google may be a good example, in fact, because they've probably already found it necessary (or soon will) to threaten other companies like Microsoft and Oracle with patents that they don't practice, but have purchased for defensive purposes.
If you had turned down the patent troll's business, you would indeed have found yourself in an even murkier ethical swamp, so in that sense you did the right thing. Out of all of the entrepreneurs I've known in a long career spent in and around small companies, I only know one founder with the personal fortitude to tell a patent troll to get bent. I don't expect to meet any others, because I'm not sure you can build a large, successful company around strong personal convictions in the general case.
That's another interesting place to draw the line, though -- self-preservation, or at least protection of your own industry. It's pretty compelling, although it still feels a bit odd to be protective of only one's own industry, while being okay with things that might be destructive to others. Hm.
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