--- title: "Litigation" description: "Litigation wins by making the fight expensive for the other side — you use patents, suits and the threat of them to burden a rival with cost, delay and risk." canonical: https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/litigation/ locale: en --- # Litigation > Markdown twin of https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/litigation/ — the same content as the HTML page, a fraction of the bytes. > Every page of this site has one: append `.md` to any URL, or `index.md` to a directory URL. > Site structure and the full page list for agents: https://moa.giglabo.com/llms.txt Category: Offense · Role: Holds · Depth: 3 Gist: weakens opponents with legal burden ## Moats - [#14 Patents and IP](https://moa.giglabo.com/moats/14/) (direct, depth 3 · Drill rig) — Enforcing a legal claim only works if you own registered patents or IP to enforce; the act of building that portfolio to sue with is the moat, and each settlement or win hardens it and warns the next copier off. ## Summary Litigation wins by making the fight expensive for the other side — you use patents, suits and the threat of them to burden a rival with cost, delay and risk. Practised seriously it forces you to build and enforce a real IP position, and that portfolio is the durable part. The lawsuits are the pressure; the patents are the moat. ## How it works The mechanism is asymmetry of burden. A suit, or a credible threat of one, forces a rival to spend money, time and management attention on defence instead of on their product. Even a weak claim can stall a launch or scare off their customers and investors. Against a smaller opponent the cost of the fight alone can decide it. The reason this holds rather than merely takes is that the pressure has to rest on something — registered patents, copyrights, a documented trade-secret claim. Building that arsenal to sue with is the same act as digging Patents and IP, moat #14. Each enforced claim hardens the portfolio and teaches the market to route around you, which is the defence itself. ## Why it holds — or only takes This holds because the lawsuits are only the visible edge of a patent position, and that position is moat #14 — depth three, resistant to AI, but no help to a solo builder and not rentable. Practising litigation is what forces you to file, register and defend, and each win deepens the portfolio and the deterrent around it. Take away the patents and there is nothing to sue on; the moat is the arsenal, not the courtroom. ## Do you have it - You hold granted patents or registered IP that read directly onto what a rival would have to build. - A demand letter from you has already changed a competitor's roadmap or delayed their launch. - Your legal spend is offensive — filing and enforcing — not just defending against others. - Rivals design around your claims rather than through them, and cite you when they do. ## How to dig it - File patents on the parts of your product that are hard to invent around, not on everything. - Document invention dates and trade secrets so a claim survives a challenge in court. - Enforce early against one visible copier; a win teaches the rest to keep their distance. - Budget for a multi-year fight before you start one, because the other side will stall. ## How it erodes - A patent expires, and the protected method becomes free for anyone to use. - A court invalidates your claim, and the deterrent you built on it evaporates. - A better-funded rival out-litigates you, turning your own weapon against you. - The invention is worked around cheaply, so the patent guards a door no one uses. ## Solo, without capital This moat is close to shut for a solo builder without capital. A provisional patent filing is cheap, but enforcement is not — a single suit runs into years and lawyers a solo builder cannot fund, and a rival knows it. What you can do this quarter is file to establish a date and document your trade secrets, so a future backer or acquirer inherits a real position; enforcing it waits for money you do not yet have. What the matrix says of its moats: - [#14 Patents and IP](https://moa.giglabo.com/moats/14/) — Solo: ✗ no · Capital: ● high · AI: ↑ AI-resistant · Rent: ✗ not for sale ## In nature, in business Nature: — Business: patent trolls, lawsuits - **Qualcomm** — Built its business on a patent portfolio for mobile standards, licensing it broadly and suing to enforce the terms. - **Intellectual Ventures** — Amassed tens of thousands of patents it did not practise, then extracted licence fees under threat of suit. - **Apple** — Sued Samsung over smartphone design and utility patents, using the courts to slow a fast-following rival. ## Combines with - [Deterrence](https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/deterrence/) — A record of winning suits projects the fear that stops a copier before it files anything. - [Secrecy](https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/secrecy/) — Keep the un-patentable parts secret and patent the rest, so a rival can neither read nor copy them. - [Monopoly](https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/monopoly/) — Enough enforced patents on a standard can harden into sanctioned market control, not just a lawsuit. [This strategy on the map](https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/?view=lanes&hl=litigation) [Map this combination](https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/?view=lanes&hl=litigation,deterrence,secrecy,monopoly) ## Fights with - [Transparency](https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/transparency/) — Open inner workings hand a rival the very details your suits depend on keeping contested. - [Distributed ownership](https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/distributed-ownership/) — A community that co-owns the work will not tolerate one party suing over shared IP. [Map this tension](https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/?view=lanes&hl=litigation,transparency,distributed-ownership) ## Source Strategy taxonomy © kepano (Steph Ango), paraphrased with attribution. Role and moat mapping © Moat Atlas. https://stephango.com/ ## Related - HTML version of this page: https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/litigation/ - Русский: https://moa.giglabo.com/ru/strategies/litigation/ - Previous: Violence — https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/violence/ - Next: Nettlesomeness — https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/nettlesomeness/ - Atlas: https://moa.giglabo.com/ - Catalogue: https://moa.giglabo.com/moats/ - Calculator: https://moa.giglabo.com/calculator/ - Strategies: https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/ - Site map for agents: https://moa.giglabo.com/llms.txt