IP: more on etoys.com takes the low road

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> Date: Fri, 03 Dec 1999 19:24:42 -0800
> Subject: Re: IP: etoys.com takes the low road
> From: "Chris Gulker" <cg () gulker com>
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
>
>
> In all these suits, lawyers rarely go after well-funded adversaries. They
> pick on outfits like etoy where there's a low risk of losing (and even lower
> risk of harm to the client).
>
> I suspect the root cause is billable hours. Startups with piles of VC cash
> attract lawyers, who need to find ways to liberate some of that cash, so
> they go after little guys.
>
> This behavior has been seen in past epochs: in the first 'privatized' games,
> the US Olympic committee's lawyers sued a 2-bus charter operator (who'd been
> using the name for years), but steered clear of Greece's national airline,
> while enforcing their control of the word 'Olympic'.