I once asked a Federal Judge, "What would happen if one using one's own patent is being accused of infringement on another patent?" His answer was, "Well, someone will win."MEH said:
😀
soongsc said:
This can easily happen. If you are issued a patent on something that is an improvement of someone elses patent, but still uses their invention, a licensee of your patent will still need a license from the base patent. This is quite common.
Thanks for the explanation. I was wondering what cause the inverted part just before the main impulse. Normally when I see the leading part before the main impulse go positive, there is usually something in the wave path that effects the pressure wave, usually some sort of diffraction.Jmmlc said:
Attachments
But what if both patents have no known relation? It is entirely possible that many people in different locations, and with no knowledge of the other can come up with similar solutions.gedlee said:
soongsc said:
This is irrelavent in most cases. In most countries it is first to file no matter who made the the earlier invention. In the US its first to invent, but there are requirements for "due dilligence" etc. and you have to Prove that you inventd it first with solid documentation. Where the invention is made is irrellevent.
Really the issue could be very complicated, or it could also be simple. But we will never know unless we get involved in a real case. I guess that's why "Someone will win."gedlee said:
Jmmlc said:
Hi Jean Michael,
I am thinking your expertise is deserving of its own thread rather than to be playing second fiddle in a discussion that is by and large a wall of mirrors,
regards
Ian
jcx said:
Those people familiar with worldwide patent laws will know that the US patent system is different in many respects to almost everywhere else in the world.
Most of these people would probably also say that the whole US patent system is -- to put it bluntly -- cr*p. Many of the US patents which get granted are a joke, and the quality (technical, not English language) of much of the correspondence I've had with some US patent examiners makes me suspect that they were recruited from the winos in Times Square 🙂
As I said, *most* countries sensibly recognize that commercial use infringes a patent but private/personal use does not. If it doesn't the US is in a minority, since -- contrary to what many people seem to believe -- the rest of the world is in fact bigger than the USA...
Ian
iand said:
True, all of it, but the US system is being revised all of the time to bring it in line with the rest of the world. It is, I believe, the oldest system of its kind in the world and it is encumbered by its legacy. Its ceratinly the biggest and most prolific.
The rest of the world may be bigger than the US, but if you can't do business here then you are seriuosly encombered compared to someone who can. SO like it or not, you have to deal with the US system as it is, not how you'd like it to be.
And yes dealing with the USPTO examiners is an exercize in total frustration.
soongsc said:
The attorneys, typically.
Patent infringement litigation is the proverbial bag of snakes, first order.
"If I have a patent, nobody can use my invention!"
Hahahaha. Your patent is only as good as your resources available to defend it in court, and even then, it's still a crapshoot. This is the territory of $300/hour dueling experts and $500/hour top-floor attorneys with expensive tastes.
Bottom line (which is often the case, unfortunately,) if your idea is worth a whit, others will find ways to exploit it....
a question for JMLC
Jean-Michel,
I'd really value your thoughts on selecting parameters for a large plasma horn; I'm looking at having something turned with a 750-1k cutoff, for x/o at 1.5 to 2k.
It will reuse ionovac parts and so requre a throat diameter of 3.7mm or so.
Clearly, a t=0.8 flare will have a very long and shallow flare for much of the horn length, which I am concerned will not be the best sonically.
Two alternatives are:
A lower cutoff with a very high T factor, eg 5 to 20 - which seems to me to look like a conical for the inital flare
A true conical with your flare spliced on for termination, with internal slope matched... but then, what parameters would one choose?! Something I need to think about.
Your wisdom on the above 3 approaches would be really appreciated!
best,
Chris
Jean-Michel,
I'd really value your thoughts on selecting parameters for a large plasma horn; I'm looking at having something turned with a 750-1k cutoff, for x/o at 1.5 to 2k.
It will reuse ionovac parts and so requre a throat diameter of 3.7mm or so.
Clearly, a t=0.8 flare will have a very long and shallow flare for much of the horn length, which I am concerned will not be the best sonically.
Two alternatives are:
A lower cutoff with a very high T factor, eg 5 to 20 - which seems to me to look like a conical for the inital flare
A true conical with your flare spliced on for termination, with internal slope matched... but then, what parameters would one choose?! Something I need to think about.
Your wisdom on the above 3 approaches would be really appreciated!
best,
Chris
ZilchLab said:
"If I have a patent, anybody can use my invention as long as they pay me for it" is closer to the truth.
The problem with the patent system comes if Bill G, Amar B, or H International make a corporate decision to "borrow" your intellectual property. You will then need very deep pockets to defend your invention - and your chances of winning are 50-50 at best (assuming you have an airtight case). So - are you willing to gamble millions of dollars, a decade or more of litigation, and take it all the way to the Supreme Court?
This is not hypothetical. Major Armstrong had to take litigation all the way up to the Supreme Court to compel RCA to finally pay royalties for the use of Armstrong FM technology. He used up nearly all of his fortune gained from the licensing of the superheterodyne (used in all AM, FM, and television receivers) to fight the decades-long case, and ended up committing suicide. His wife continued the case, and finally won the Supreme Court decision two years after his death. The theft of substantial parts of television technology from Farnsworth followed a similar course, with the battle against RCA going all the way up to the Supreme Court, and Farnsworth finally winning just as the patents were about to expire.
It's not generally known that Bill Gates isn't a little country boy - his father was one of the top patent attorneys in the State of Washington, and the Law Library at the University of Washington is dedicated to Bill's father. (I've done a little research there, but I'm not a lawyer.) That's why Bill wins most of his court cases - his real area of expertise is IP law.
These are the kind of people you go up against when one of the big boys takes an interest in your invention. How deep are your pockets, and how many years of your life are you willing to give to it?
This is not hypothetical. Major Armstrong had to take litigation all the way up to the Supreme Court to compel RCA to finally pay royalties for the use of Armstrong FM technology. He used up nearly all of his fortune gained from the licensing of the superheterodyne (used in all AM, FM, and television receivers) to fight the decades-long case, and ended up committing suicide. His wife continued the case, and finally won the Supreme Court decision two years after his death. The theft of substantial parts of television technology from Farnsworth followed a similar course, with the battle against RCA going all the way up to the Supreme Court, and Farnsworth finally winning just as the patents were about to expire.
It's not generally known that Bill Gates isn't a little country boy - his father was one of the top patent attorneys in the State of Washington, and the Law Library at the University of Washington is dedicated to Bill's father. (I've done a little research there, but I'm not a lawyer.) That's why Bill wins most of his court cases - his real area of expertise is IP law.
These are the kind of people you go up against when one of the big boys takes an interest in your invention. How deep are your pockets, and how many years of your life are you willing to give to it?
Very true Lynn. That said, we might be approaching, if not actually yet making, a turning point. Look at how Monster backed off when Kurt Denke of Blue Jeans Cable refused to be intmidated by them:
http://www.bluejeanscable.com/legal/mcp/index.htm
True, we're not all in the happy position of being experienced & uncompromising lawyers who happen to be a specialist in the field (as Kurt is) but he wrote quite a lengthy missive on audioholics giving some general advice & views on the subject, which makes both interesting, and heartening reading: http://www.audioholics.com/news/editorials/blue-jeans-followup
Monster have since gone off in search of easier targets. They are currently attacking Monster Mini-Golf. How does the song go? Ah yes: 'The Lunatics Have Taken Over the Asylum...' You couldn't make this idiocy up. Hope they read Kurt's advice... 😉
http://www.bluejeanscable.com/legal/mcp/index.htm
True, we're not all in the happy position of being experienced & uncompromising lawyers who happen to be a specialist in the field (as Kurt is) but he wrote quite a lengthy missive on audioholics giving some general advice & views on the subject, which makes both interesting, and heartening reading: http://www.audioholics.com/news/editorials/blue-jeans-followup
Monster have since gone off in search of easier targets. They are currently attacking Monster Mini-Golf. How does the song go? Ah yes: 'The Lunatics Have Taken Over the Asylum...' You couldn't make this idiocy up. Hope they read Kurt's advice... 😉
There is another side to the patent thing. The big companies also have deep pockets to pay when they loose and they know that too. In general the big companies costs for litigation are orders of magnitude greater than that for an individual. SO much so that they usually just pay if there is any chance they will have to go to court. No lawyer wants to see "poor Johnny Smith" defending himself against a patent infringment suit before a jury. If the suite is big enough then many law firms will take it on contingency.
Harman lost big time in a jury infringment suite against Bose. I've know companies put out of business from infringment suites that they lost. One was even to an individual.
Its a double edged sword.
Harman lost big time in a jury infringment suite against Bose. I've know companies put out of business from infringment suites that they lost. One was even to an individual.
Its a double edged sword.
MEH said:
From the USPTO: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/doc/general/index.html#patent
The right conferred by the patent grant is, in the language of the statute and of the grant itself, “the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling” the invention in the United States or “importing” the invention into the United States. What is granted is not the right to make, use, offer for sale, sell or import, but the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing the invention. Once a patent is issued, the patentee must enforce the patent without aid of the USPTO.
Further:
Infringement of a patent consists of the unauthorized making, using, offering for sale, or selling any patented invention within the United States or U.S. Territories, or importing into the United States of any patented invention during the term of the patent. If a patent is infringed, the patentee may sue for relief in the appropriate federal court. The patentee may ask the court for an injunction to prevent the continuation of the infringement and may also ask the court for an award of damages because of the infringement. In such an infringement suit, the defendant may raise the question of the validity of the patent, which is then decided by the court. The defendant may also aver that what is being done does not constitute infringement. Infringement is determined primarily by the language of the claims of the patent and, if what the defendant is making does not fall within the language of any of the claims of the patent, there is no literal infringement.
Note the concept of damages. Just making a patented item does not necessarily prove damage to the patent holder. Selling an item is clearer, and easier to establish damage, especially so if there is a commercial product available under the patent.
Sheldon
ZilchLab said:
The attorneys, typically.
Patent infringement litigation is the proverbial bag of snakes, first order.
"If I have a patent, nobody can use my invention!"
Hahahaha. Your patent is only as good as your resources available to defend it in court, and even then, it's still a crapshoot. This is the territory of $300/hour dueling experts and $500/hour top-floor attorneys with expensive tastes.
Bottom line (which is often the case, unfortunately,) if your idea is worth a whit, others will find ways to exploit it....
The (large) electronics company I work for knows for sure that one of our (large) competitors is infringing several of my patents and that this has lost us considerable business. However, the cost of bringing a suit against them in the US was estimated at $5M-$10M and we can't justify that -- in addition, there's a risk of starting a tit-for-tat patent war which could escalate.
So in reality it's rare for two companies with substantial patent portfolios in the same area to go to court for these reasons, unless the amount of money at stake is very large, probably >$50M. If the infringer is a small company then they're much more likely to get sued because they don't have a patent heap to fight back with and are even less likely to be able to stand the cost and time of a patent court case.
Ian
P.S. Just noticed the forum nanny has censored tit-for-tat 🙂
So if someone cannot afford an attorney, they cannot carry on in court on thier own?ZilchLab said:
The attorneys, typically.
Patent infringement litigation is the proverbial bag of snakes, first order.
"If I have a patent, nobody can use my invention!"
Hahahaha. Your patent is only as good as your resources available to defend it in court, and even then, it's still a crapshoot. This is the territory of $300/hour dueling experts and $500/hour top-floor attorneys with expensive tastes.
Bottom line (which is often the case, unfortunately,) if your idea is worth a whit, others will find ways to exploit it....
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