As long as those patent numbers are on a product, people won't be as likely to do anything similar for fear of patent violation. I don't buy that. At the very

As long as those patent numbers are on a product, people won't be as likely to do anything similar for fear of patent violation. I don't buy that. At the very least you'll want to look up the title of the patent before getting scared off, which is an easy google request. And those patent documents all have issuing dates - if the data is 50 years ago, why worry? What really gets me about the article are the claims about misleading customers. Unless I'm mistaken, customers don't care about patents. The numbers are only there so that if there is an infringement case, the patent owners can get more cash. The chilling effects of patents still stand, as you can never know if some product you think you just invented is covered, even a little bit, by some obscure patent. And they are all obscure, because it triples your damages if there is evidence you've read the relevant patents. But now I'm just ranting. At least these guys have a product to write the patent number on.