Precisely! The secret recipe for coke? Not patented folks. And secret corporate business processes aren't patented. And as an aside, patent law was written when 7 years wasn't a technologically long time, and the side affect *was* to allow the public to benefit from public record of invention. With most high tech stuff now, 7 years of patent is 10 times the useful life of the technology. At 11:51 AM 3/29/2000 -0800, Mark G. wrote: > > > > Patent law is written to protect the public. > >Not true; The constitution, where our patent system was born, says in >article 1, section 8 "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by >securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to >their respective Writings and Discoveries"; there is nothing about >protecting anyone but the inventors, and this is done in exchange for them >promoting their ideas, i.e.. making them public so the rest of society can >benefit. Note that if you conceal the idea, you will most likely not be >able to patent it. > > >Patent holders have > > no right to > > stop you from using their invention. They only have the right to > > charge you a > > license fee. > >Also not true; injunction is a standard remedy and you would be prohibited >from making, using, selling, importing etc. the infringing product. A fee >is not even a remedy going forward, only looking back for past infringement >(because you cannot change the past and give a retroactive injunction) > > > > What the rate of that fee is must be negotiated but if you think > > the patent > > holder is asking too much you can take it to court. > >Not true; you cannot "take it (the fee) to court" , but you can seek to >invalidate the patent or prove non infringement, which results in no fee >paid. If you lose, the court/jury will decide the reasonable royalty, >HOWEVER, this will be only for PAST infringement, and you will most likely >get an injunction for the future. And if you knew you infringed and did it >anyway because you didn't like their fee, you may get TRIPLE damages >depending upon the judge (it is proscribed in the law that he can award up >to triple the damages for willful infringement). > > > > > If a patent holder does not build a device themselves or license > > it, they can > > lose their patent rights. > >This is not true; read the constitution quote above. there is nothing about >this in the United States law, and it is totally legal to exclude others >even if you don't build it yourself. See Injunction discussion above. >Patent law in general doesn't care what you do; note it does not even ALLOW >you do to ANYTHING EXCEPT exclude others from practicing your invention. >Just because you have a patent does not allow you to practice the invention >if others have patents on your product. > > > > > In most cases like this competitors don't want to be seen as > > having to use their > > competitors' technology or they simply don't want to pay the money for a > > license. > >Just about everyone in high tech uses each others patents; no way to avoid >it. We all license what we can, and fight where we cant. I just completed >a two year series of litigations Monday which cost about $20M in legal fees, >where I had to teach the other company a lesson they wont soon forget about >patent law. They lost their best patents to us, and their licensing program >was devastated all because they "didn't want to be seen having to use their >competitors technology". Go figure > >Mark > > > > > > > Best Regards, > > > > Rick Fincher > > Thunderbird Technologies, Inc. > > rnf@tb*.co* > > > > -- > > Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aq*.co*'. > > Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aq*.co*'. ---------------------------------- Kevin Connell <kevin@nw*.co*> NW Labor Systems, Inc http://www.nwls.com Res tantum valet quantum vendi potest. (A thing is only worth what someone else is willing to pay for it) ----------------------------------
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