Indie filmmaker says HBO’s Silicon Valley ripped off his movie about patent trolls
When Austin-based filmmaker Lex Lybrand set out to make a movie about patent trolls, people who abuse the legal system by weaponizing intellectual property rights, he wanted to focus on Texas, not Silicon Valley. Still, he’s gotten tangled up with the other Silicon Valley — the satirical HBO comedy about the California tech hub. Lybrand says a writer for the show stole elements of his film, including key lines of dialogue, scenes, and overarching plot elements.
With help from an Austin intellectual-property firm, Lybrand is now trying to set the record straight. First, it helps to understand why an indie movie set in Texas and built around intellectual-property abuse, would catch the eye of a team of Los Angeles-based TV writers. For...