>
> 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*
>
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