Cloudflare, which was sued by “patent troll” Sable Networks, is offering a $100K bounty to those who can find evidence of prior art on Sable Networks' patents
The Cloudflare BlogDoug Kramer
Context & Ripple Effects
Cloudflare's $100K prior-art bounty against Sable Networks is a repeat of a playbook it first ran in 2017, when it used a prior art bounty and other aggressive tactics against patent assertion firm Blackbird. That campaign ended with a US court dismissing the suit and invalidating Blackbird's patent on the grounds that abstract ideas are not patentable — a precedent Cloudflare later chronicled in an inside account of the Blackbird defeat.
First-order effects
Sable Networks' litigation campaign now faces a crowd-funded search for prior art: anyone who can surface evidence that its patents cover already-known techniques can claim part of the $100K, directly targeting the validity of the patents underpinning the suit.
Second-order effects
The bounty converts Cloudflare's customer and developer base into a distributed legal research team at near-zero marginal cost — a cost structure no small NPE litigating against it can match, and one that raises the expected cost of asserting weak patents against Cloudflare.
Third-order effects
If the pattern holds — as it did when Cloudflare went on to [[a:849328|defeat Sable Networks itself in 2024, invalidating parts of three patents found via crowdsourced prior art]] — repeated public defeats of patent assertions erode the economics of the troll business model, pushing defendants toward offensive invalidation rather than settlement.
The trend: Defendant companies are shifting from paying settlements to running public prior-art campaigns that attack patent validity itself, with Cloudflare's Project Jengo as the template.
“Patent trolls like Sable proliferate because of a distorted incentive structure fueled by the astronomical costs associated with defending against even bogus patent claims.” https://blog.cloudflare.com/ ...
“Instead of just saying it wouldn't settle, Cloudflare set out to completely destroy the patent troll who sued it.” “It sought to crowdsource prior art not just for the patent used against Cloudflare, but every single patent in Blackbird's portfolio.” https://t.co/geTS7NizhN
Love to see Cloudflare pick up the Newegg mantle of seeking to utterly destroy any patent troll who dares to come their way. https://www.techdirt.com/...
Beautiful. CloudFlare is paying bounties, too. “Once again, Cloudflare is not just looking to invalidate the four patents Sable asserted against Cloudflare, but all 10 patents Sable currently holds.” https://twitter.com/...
It is truly a public service what @Cloudflare is doing in these patent cases. Patent trolls are a tax on the advancement of society. Thank you Cloudflare. https://twitter.com/...
To quote Billions, “what's the point of having fuck you money if you never say fuck you?” Of course, in this case Cloudflare is not just pulling off a badass move but also doing a huge public service by fighting some of the most rentseeking institutions in the world! https://twit…
A patent troll has used nearly 20-year-old patents to sue 13 companies. @cloudflare is offering $100k in bounties to those who help find & publish prior art on these patents. https://blog.cloudflare.com/ ...
networking experts who've ben around for a while: Cloudflare contest seeking submissions to identify prior art for all of Sable's active patents - on what sound like fairly basic routing and switching functionality https://twitter.com/...