Up Periscope
Yeah, when the US system was set up so that applications were not made public, sometimes people would intentionally keep their patents in the examination process for a long, long time by various legal means of stalling and delay. The idea was that if you had an app in and someone else started making a product that would infringe an issued patent, you could delay the start of the 17 year clock until the person selling the infringing item started becoming successful. At that point, you stop delaying, the patent would issue, there would be a fresh 17 year clock, and the person infringing was now over a barrel and had little choice but to pony up a large license fee. If you let the patent issue more quickly, it would dissuade someone else from footing the cost of getting the item commercially established- and you would have less time when you could collect royalties.
Because a patent would emerge from seemingly nowhere and fire a legal torpedo at someone who was quite innocent in their intent, this practice became known as "submarine patenting."
Yeah, when the US system was set up so that applications were not made public, sometimes people would intentionally keep their patents in the examination process for a long, long time by various legal means of stalling and delay. The idea was that if you had an app in and someone else started making a product that would infringe an issued patent, you could delay the start of the 17 year clock until the person selling the infringing item started becoming successful. At that point, you stop delaying, the patent would issue, there would be a fresh 17 year clock, and the person infringing was now over a barrel and had little choice but to pony up a large license fee. If you let the patent issue more quickly, it would dissuade someone else from footing the cost of getting the item commercially established- and you would have less time when you could collect royalties.
Because a patent would emerge from seemingly nowhere and fire a legal torpedo at someone who was quite innocent in their intent, this practice became known as "submarine patenting."
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baggystevo82 said:
From the above site I posted a link to:
In the US, until recently, patents lasted 17 years from the date of issue - so a submarine patent could lurk under the surface for many years until an infringing product did appear. Recently, the US went to 20 years from date of filing. This reduces the scope of submarine patents by preventing filers from indefinitely delaying the issue of their patents. It does not prevent submarine patents in general, since one can still file a patent on a technology that has not been fully implemented and collect royalties from the real implementor; however, a patent filed in 2003 will expire in 2023 no matter when it issues, so the filer can benefit from the submarine patent only for a fixed period of time, far shorter than under the old system.
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Brian
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