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"Google has patents on the built-in battery design, "but I think we'd be willing to license them to vendors," Hoelzle said." Can you patent a device you use as

• dctoedt 16y ago
  > Can you patent a device you use as part of your business but don't sell? Yes; I can't think of any familiar examples offhand, but it happens a lot. As a baby lawyer I wrote a patent application for an automatic pizza-making machine, invented by the owner of a mom-and-pop restaurant, who IIRC never marketed the machine. > I don't think you could get away with protecting a patent on a device you never try to market. In the U.S. (and most other industrialized countries AFAIK), the patent laws don't require a patent owner to market, or even try to market, a patented invention. If the patent owner was just trying to keep others out so that no one was using the invention, a court would probably take that into account in determining (i) whether to grant a injunction against further infringement by the defendant and (ii) what a reasonable royalty would be for the defendant's infringement. But that wouldn't affect the validity of the patent itself.
• jonhendry 16y ago
  There are US companies whose whole business is to own patents and sue companies who, they claim, infringe upon them.