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It is dangerous to document, especially publicly, your discovery of a pre-existing patent on your project. You may open yourself up to treble damages. For this

It is dangerous to document, especially publicly, your discovery of a pre-existing patent on your project. You may open yourself up to treble damages. For this reason, it can be dangerous to research patents on your concept. IANAL; however I did work as an engineer supporting the legal team in a patent infringement suit. Nasty stuff. In this case, my team was suing somebody else for infringement of our company's patent, and while the patent was at least innovative, the awarded damages seemed totally out of order to the value of the patent. Anyhow... The legally correct thing to do now would be retaining counsel to determine if you are infringing, and/or to find prior art that invalidates the patent.

dctoedt 17y ago
@Rantenki, retaining counsel is _a_ legally correct thing to do, but not necessarily the only correct thing. In its 2007 _Seagate_ opinion, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit announced a sea change (pun intended) in its jurisprudence on willful infringement. See http://www.patentbaristas.com/archives/2007/08/24/is-the-tide-of-willful-patent-infringement-litigation-receding/ http://www.patentbaristas.com/archives/2007/08/24/is-the-tid... for a good write-up; the money quote is in bold about 40% of the way down. Usual disclaimer: Don't rely on this as legal advice, I'm not your lawyer, etc., etc. (I think I'm going to do an AutoHotKey entry for the foregoing ....)