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Patents do not give the assignee any protection against IP theft. It merely gives them the right to litigate. I’m not suggesting this idea as your primary posi
by matt_the_bass 7y ago
Patents do not give the assignee any protection against IP theft. It merely gives them the right to litigate.
I’m not suggesting this idea as your primary position. However, your new company could just ignore his patent and infringe. If your company is “successful” it will likely have more financial wherewithal than your friend. He’d have to raise a lot of money to fight your company.
This is clearly and obnoxious move, but totally legal (IANAL but I hold 5 patents).
- matt_the_bass 7y agoAlso, have you read the patent? The protection is only offered to the claims not the specification (all the rest of the text). Do the claims actually cover the up you care about or could you do what you want differently (even if covered in the specification) without doing what’s in the claims? The patent may not actually cover what you want to do. Alternatively, can you find other prior art that negates the claims? The patent issue process does not perform and exhaustive search on prior art. It could by that you could invalidate the claims if it ever claim to litigation.