Patents

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Shaos
 
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Joined: Sun Oct 04, 2009 9:41 pm

Patents

Post by Shaos »

Should I be afraid of patents if I think about kit business?...

Rotzog
 
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Joined: Mon Nov 23, 2009 10:10 pm

Re: Patents

Post by Rotzog »

Depends on what you are planning to sell.

If you come up with something original - OK.

If you use something open source, and follow the attribution rules - OK.

If you copy someone else's idea, and claim it as your own - not so good.

Shaos
 
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Joined: Sun Oct 04, 2009 9:41 pm

Re: Patents

Post by Shaos »

Rotzog wrote:If you copy someone else's idea, and claim it as your own - not so good.
It is not possible to create something fully original and totally different from what already exists - at least partially it will be copied from somewhere...

Shaos
 
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Joined: Sun Oct 04, 2009 9:41 pm

Re: Patents

Post by Shaos »

Some thoughts from here: http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.p ... 4062&st=40
Selling the parts (unassembled) to build a patented device is not illegal. You'll find that a lot of DIY electronics kits are sold ONLY unassembled and there is a reason behind this. It's not illegal to sell a PWM Dimmer and an LED array separately. What is illegal is selling them integrated together, or even meant to be used together.
So, it is why everybody selling kits only and not assembled devices...

Shaos
 
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Joined: Sun Oct 04, 2009 9:41 pm

Re: Patents

Post by Shaos »

Some words from "intellectual property expert": http://glassbox-design.com/2009/patents ... -infringe/
Q: So I could be sued for a DIY project...?
A. Technically yes, but in the real world, it is unlikely. As the damages would likely be very small compared to the cost of bringing the suit, it is not a financially viable lawsuit.

Q: What about a company selling a kit to make a product that infringes?
A. Even though a company doesn’t actually make, use, or sell an invention, they could still be liable for indirect infringement if they sell a kit to make an infringing product. Specifically, if a company is shown to have knowingly contributed to the infringement of another, or induced infringement by another, they can be liable for indirect infringement.

Rotzog
 
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Re: Patents

Post by Rotzog »

...and you've answered your own question.

Shaos
 
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Joined: Sun Oct 04, 2009 9:41 pm

Re: Patents

Post by Shaos »

Rotzog wrote:...and you've answered your own question.
So answer is "do nothing at all to avoid being sued"...
But I want to do something and need to know more about game rules

Rotzog
 
Posts: 106
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Re: Patents

Post by Rotzog »

No, that's not what you answered to yourself.

> Selling the parts (unassembled) to build a patented device is not illegal.

> Q: So I could be sued for a DIY project...? A. Technically yes, but in the real world, it is unlikely

If you are planning to go out and directly and deliberately steal someone else's idea, you may very well get sued, and rightfully so.

If you are going to produce something with at least a little original thought, you are probably doing to be fine.

If you can come up with a truly original idea, then your problem is going to be people stealing your idea. See a lawyer.

Shaos
 
Posts: 76
Joined: Sun Oct 04, 2009 9:41 pm

Re: Patents

Post by Shaos »

Rotzog wrote:If you are planning to go out and directly and deliberately steal someone else's idea, you may very well get sued, and rightfully so.
As I understand currently patent law working a little bit different than century ago. At present a lot of patents are really broad - they do not cover some specific product, but potentially cover WHOLE field of some specific interests to avoid ANY type of competition. For example you can't sell something that looks like digital camera without licensing some technologies (pretty obvious ones in most). The same for DVR (for me it's just digitized VCR-like technology plus ability to shift video stream in time, but everybody pays TiVo for this feature). Patents are probably OK for corporations that may have thousands of patents to defend itself, but not for small businesses. And definitely not for "open source" model that can't have any control over quantity of produced devices...
Rotzog wrote:If you can come up with a truly original idea, then your problem is going to be people stealing your idea.
I'm going to produce devices with "free hardware design", so it's OK to "steal" and share ;)

P.S. This quote looks scary (not first one):
Q: What about a company selling a kit to make a product that infringes?
A. Even though a company doesn’t actually make, use, or sell an invention, they could still be liable for indirect infringement if they sell a kit to make an infringing product. Specifically, if a company is shown to have knowingly contributed to the infringement of another, or induced infringement by another, they can be liable for indirect infringement.

Shaos
 
Posts: 76
Joined: Sun Oct 04, 2009 9:41 pm

Re: Patents

Post by Shaos »

Rotzog wrote:If you are planning to go out and directly and deliberately steal someone else's idea, you may very well get sued, and rightfully so.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobsen_v._Katzer (it's about "patent infringement" case against free software for train hobbyists):
In March of 2005, Katzer sent patent infringement letters and later sent additional notices and bills to Jacobsen, informing him that the code in the JMRI project violated KAM Industries patents, and that more than $200,000 were due for licensing fees of previously distributed versions of the software. On October 7, 2005 Katzer sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the United States Department of Energy, based on Jacobsen's lbl.gov email address.
Now case is closed, but from my point of view it does not look like a big victory, because the settlement in $100K covers expenses only partially...

Do you think that this guy was "stealing someone else's idea" and was properly threatened? I don't think so. It looks like he just stepped into the field where somebody believes to have exclusive monopoly to operate...

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westfw
 
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Re: Patents

Post by westfw »

There are no legal or technical solutions that completely suppress jerks...

(geez, I can't even keep track of what happened in the wikipedia summary...)

flakelabs
 
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Re: Patents

Post by flakelabs »

Hey, thanks for these posts. I just ran into this stumbling block the other day. It is BANNED because the technology is no longer actively produced. In fact IPhone asked them to stop.... But it seems like the patent is still active. :(

Michael

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