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Ask HN: How to deal with patents?

• bsaunder 18y ago
  I'd say go ahead and proceed with your idea (of course, I'm not a lawyer). People with patents, don't care about you until you have money (confirmed this with a patent troll I met recently at a convention). At that point you can either work around the patent or negotiate a license agreement. Also (and this is mentioned everywhere in these circles), what you actually launch with may be entirely different than your idea right now anyway. Don't worry about problems you don't have yet. Good to know about the up coming problems, but focus on making progress, otherwise it's just mental entertainment.
  • amjith 18y ago
    Should I wait to contact the patent holder until I am successful or just contact him now and ask him if we can make a deal?
    • timr 18y ago
      That's a bit like going up to a police officer and asking him for advice on the best way to rob someone without getting caught. Remember: if a patent holder can show that you've knowingly infringed on a patent, it's much worse than the alternative. Keep your mouth shut until you're absolutely positive that you've got a problem. How do you know? You talk to an attorney.
    • bluelu 18y ago
      As far as I know, you don't have to pay anything to a patentholder as long as he doesn't contact you! Until then you are free to use as many patents as you like. But you better ask your lawyer on this topic.
• michael_dorfman 18y ago
  Talk to a lawyer. Generally speaking, the idea can't be patented, but the implementation can be. Get a copy of the existing patent, and document how your implementation diverges. Have your lawyer see what the potential exposure is.
• deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
• mooneater 18y ago
  Dont forget, triple damages if they can show you knew about their patent if they sue.
  • micks56 18y ago
    Knowledge of an existing patent is only 1 factor of 9 when determining whether to award treble damages. All 9 factors are: 1. whether copying was deliberate 2. whether upon notice infringer did good faith investigation (upon notice, did you see if you really were infringing) 3. infringer's behavior as a party to the litigation (did your lawyers place nice in pleadings and motions) 4. infringer's size and financial condition (big guy vs. little guy?) 5. closeness of the case (if the case could go either way, no treble damages) 6. duration of infringer's conduct 7. remedial action by the infringer (when notified of infringement, did you develop a non-infringing work around) 8. infringer's motivation for harm 9. whether infringer attempted to conceal misconduct The court weighs all of these to determine whether to enforce treble damages. They are not weighed equally, and you don't have to fail a certain number. You have 2 ways you can go. First, you can just build the idea and see what happens. Don't research whether you are infringing, and just take it as you are working in the same area as someone else. Or you can read the actual patent and see what is claimed. Engineer around that, and around extensions of that patent that a person of ordinary skill in the art would consider obvious.
• lincolnq 18y ago
  It's probably too late for you in this case, but in the future, it's probably a good idea never to read patents. (not legal advice) That's the policy I keep -- I don't follow links with 'patent' in the URL, because it's much worse for you if you knowingly infringe. For that matter, I don't even read paper publications out of places like Microsoft Research because of patent-related issues. Take a look at this, warning about an IBM publication: http://on-ruby.blogspot.com/2008/02/ip-police-line-do-not-cross.html http://on-ruby.blogspot.com/2008/02/ip-police-line-do-not-cr...
• noonespecial 18y ago
  Patents these days are so broad and so many that whatever your idea is, there will be a patent covering it or someone ready to claim that the one they have covers it. Make a good product, make money, then pay lawyers to sort it out for you. Its all mostly pretend now anyway. Patents really have about as much to do with ideas as Scientology has to do with science. It also seems these days that the more a company blathers about patent-pending this and proprietary that, the less actual innovation they've done.
• agentbleu 18y ago
  http://thenextweb.org/2008/05/29/the-innovation-problem-no-one-else-cares/ http://thenextweb.org/2008/05/29/the-innovation-problem-no-o... In this article I talk about how patent's are effectively nonsense for all but a very few who know how to 'work' the law who also have the fat to do so.