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I'm not sure I understand why a schematic would violate a patent. As far as I'm aware, patents do not exist to make information secret, but to provide a tempora

I'm not sure I understand why a schematic would violate a patent. As far as I'm aware, patents do not exist to make information secret, but to provide a temporary exclusive legal right in exchange for making the information public.

dpkonofa 5y ago
A schematic, in and of itself, may not violate a patent but providing a means for someone to create a part that requires software that's patented may open up people and companies to litigation that would kill them. Qualcomm, for example, holds patents for any number of chips that are in mobile devices from any tech company. A phone manufacturer, more than likely, wouldn't be able to provide schematics for their device that would include any details of how to repair that chip without having to defer to Qualcomm as it itself is only licensing that technology for production of their devices. Patents provide that exclusive legal right but, in most cases, don't extend that right to licensees. The whole situation is a mess.
- foerbert 5y ago
  I don't think you're correctly understanding what is being asked for, and even if you do, I don't your analysis is correct. First of all, nobody is asking for detailed instructions on how to produce all the parts from some base level. A schematic is only really going to show a level deeper. It would be plenty useful just knowing what connects where, and why. Meanwhile the actual knowledge to produce the part from scratch isn't even that useful in terms of repair unless the scale is rather massive. Secondly, I'm not aware of any reason it would be so terribly illegal to tell somebody how to violate a patent. The whole point of the patent system is to let people know how to do exactly what the patent is for - but in exchange the creator gets a temporary legal means of preventing others from actually doing it. The actual means of violating a patent are inherently public - otherwise the patent could not exist in the first place. So I have no idea how Qualcomm would sue anybody out of existence for telling people information that is already public. Of course this is limited to patents. There may be other aspects in play that would result in secret information that could not be distributed. But patents are not it.

dpkonofa 5y ago

A schematic, in and of itself, may not violate a patent but providing a means for someone to create a part that requires software that's patented may open up people and companies to litigation that would kill them. Qualcomm, for example, holds patents for any number of chips that are in mobile devices from any tech company. A phone manufacturer, more than likely, wouldn't be able to provide schematics for their device that would include any details of how to repair that chip without having to defer to Qualcomm as it itself is only licensing that technology for production of their devices. Patents provide that exclusive legal right but, in most cases, don't extend that right to licensees. The whole situation is a mess.

foerbert 5y ago
I don't think you're correctly understanding what is being asked for, and even if you do, I don't your analysis is correct. First of all, nobody is asking for detailed instructions on how to produce all the parts from some base level. A schematic is only really going to show a level deeper. It would be plenty useful just knowing what connects where, and why. Meanwhile the actual knowledge to produce the part from scratch isn't even that useful in terms of repair unless the scale is rather massive. Secondly, I'm not aware of any reason it would be so terribly illegal to tell somebody how to violate a patent. The whole point of the patent system is to let people know how to do exactly what the patent is for - but in exchange the creator gets a temporary legal means of preventing others from actually doing it. The actual means of violating a patent are inherently public - otherwise the patent could not exist in the first place. So I have no idea how Qualcomm would sue anybody out of existence for telling people information that is already public. Of course this is limited to patents. There may be other aspects in play that would result in secret information that could not be distributed. But patents are not it.