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@aquanaut.com'.
> > Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.


----------------------------------
  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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