4 ms·

Of course it is. If you don't want to be hit with or lose a patent infringement lawsuit, you'd damn well better search for applicable patents so you can avoid t

Of course it is. If you don't want to be hit with or lose a patent infringement lawsuit, you'd damn well better search for applicable patents so you can avoid them. Perversely, if you simply assume there will be patent lawsuits you will lose, you're better off not finding them, lest you then be hit with treble damages. For a small entity, of course, it doesn't matter. Your legal bills will bankrupt you anyway.

diminoten 13y ago
Actually, no, that's not how it works. When being sued for patent infringement, a valid defense is indeed, "I didn't know about that patent."
- georgemcbay 13y ago
  No it isn't. You either infringe a patent or you don't. It is better not to know about the patent if you get caught infringing because of the treble damage possibility that nknighthb referenced, but "I didn't know about that patent" is a meaningless defense, you're still on the hook for the base cost of the infringement, just not 3x whatever that base is. In either the current situation or the one I think is worth considering, you either infringe or you don't, nothing changes with regard to due diligence. Many patents are infringed every day with the infringing party having no idea infringement occurred (see: Carmack's reinvention of the z-fail stencil shadow system or any of countless other examples); but not knowing of the patent is absolutely not a defense. This is one of the more insidious problems with the current patent system as it relates to software, there are so many broad patents currently active that you basically can't avoid infringing all of them if you write any code at all, even if you never spend a second looking at other people's patents. The only variables are will you ever get big enough to be worth suing or not prior to the lifetime of the many patents you will invariably infringe. Also, the idea that having a system where the IP holder is essentially forced to act to maintain control of the IP can't, by definition, be "impossible" because it is already how trademark law works in the US. And as I mentioned in the original post I made on this I recognize there would be some negative fallout from the proposed system, but I think over the long-run it efficiently adds in a lot of features to patents that are currently missing (eg. a lot of people have proposed a yearly fee to renew patents to make sure people don't horde mountains of defensive garbage patents, this would achieve that same goal because they wouldn't want to put the legal resources in worthless suits against known infringers, and thus their garbage patents would very quickly lose their power; also it would make it far easier for many unknowing infringers (see for example the recent audio podcast patent disaster that is still going on) to group up to fight garbage patents because the person claiming patent protection would be forced to pull them all in instead of using the current system which is "go after the small fish, get a victory in East Texas, then use that to bleed everyone else dry".
  - diminoten 13y ago
    > No it isn't. You either infringe a patent or you don't. It is better not to know about the patent if you get caught infringing because of the treble damage possibility that nknighthb referenced, but "I didn't know about that patent" is a meaningless defense, you're still on the hook for the base cost of the infringement, just not 3x whatever that base is. So yes it is, then?

diminoten 13y ago

Actually, no, that's not how it works. When being sued for patent infringement, a valid defense is indeed, "I didn't know about that patent."

georgemcbay 13y ago
No it isn't. You either infringe a patent or you don't. It is better not to know about the patent if you get caught infringing because of the treble damage possibility that nknighthb referenced, but "I didn't know about that patent" is a meaningless defense, you're still on the hook for the base cost of the infringement, just not 3x whatever that base is. In either the current situation or the one I think is worth considering, you either infringe or you don't, nothing changes with regard to due diligence. Many patents are infringed every day with the infringing party having no idea infringement occurred (see: Carmack's reinvention of the z-fail stencil shadow system or any of countless other examples); but not knowing of the patent is absolutely not a defense. This is one of the more insidious problems with the current patent system as it relates to software, there are so many broad patents currently active that you basically can't avoid infringing all of them if you write any code at all, even if you never spend a second looking at other people's patents. The only variables are will you ever get big enough to be worth suing or not prior to the lifetime of the many patents you will invariably infringe. Also, the idea that having a system where the IP holder is essentially forced to act to maintain control of the IP can't, by definition, be "impossible" because it is already how trademark law works in the US. And as I mentioned in the original post I made on this I recognize there would be some negative fallout from the proposed system, but I think over the long-run it efficiently adds in a lot of features to patents that are currently missing (eg. a lot of people have proposed a yearly fee to renew patents to make sure people don't horde mountains of defensive garbage patents, this would achieve that same goal because they wouldn't want to put the legal resources in worthless suits against known infringers, and thus their garbage patents would very quickly lose their power; also it would make it far easier for many unknowing infringers (see for example the recent audio podcast patent disaster that is still going on) to group up to fight garbage patents because the person claiming patent protection would be forced to pull them all in instead of using the current system which is "go after the small fish, get a victory in East Texas, then use that to bleed everyone else dry".
- diminoten 13y ago
  > No it isn't. You either infringe a patent or you don't. It is better not to know about the patent if you get caught infringing because of the treble damage possibility that nknighthb referenced, but "I didn't know about that patent" is a meaningless defense, you're still on the hook for the base cost of the infringement, just not 3x whatever that base is. So yes it is, then?