At 09:09 AM 7/16/01 -0700, you wrote:
>I am not a lawyer, nor have I played one on T.V., but from what I've been told
>by people who are lawyers, any material that has a verifiable date on it is
>valid for both defending a patent, and challenging a patent.
>
>If you have a design and have documents with a verifiable date, and some one
>comes along at a later date and patents what you designed, you should be
>able to
>challenge that patent.
>
>This does not me that you can get the patent yourself or stop them from using
>your design, but it does mean that they cannot stop you, or anybody else from
>using your design.

The one thing I haven't seen mentioned on this thread is about the actual
value of
a patent or registered design (available in some more enlightened countries
;-])

You can get a patent but depending on how good the lawyer was who did the
original work was it can make the difference between a good patent and one
that
is easily challenged or gets ignored as its too vague. You can easily spend a
minimum of $35,000 just to get a crappy patent for electronics. $100,000+
isn't uncommon.

The thing about this is just because you have a patent does not guarantee you
have control of things. There are two rather important factors you need to
consider
on patents. One is that I (well someone can ) can get copies of your
abstract and
other docs and maybe even look at one of your wonder widgits and reverse
engineer
the whole thing. Then if they are in a nasty mood they can file for a new
patent citing
improvements and that your claims were too broad and vague.

The other part of patents is YOU as the patent owner are the only one that
can go after
a company that violates your patent. That means lawyers, court and of
course money.
Until you go after and legally stop the violators nothing happens. And to
make things
real interesting, if you wait too long it becomes harder and harder to stop
them or
recover damages. After a certain they can argue fair use and have your
patent voided
or declared non enforceable.

The thing to really consider is if it is worth going through the process or
if the product
has a fairly short life span you should just get out there first in a big
way. If the money
you spend on getting a patent is the amount you need to be in business then
you should
consider just getting it out to the market. If you spend the money and run
out getting
the patent, all you wind up with is 10-20 sheets of paper from the patent
office. Which you'll
probably have had to pay to get a copy of that as well.

Remember lawyers are great at giving advice and separating you from your
money but they don't
know all the answers. If they did I would have been rich 20+ years ago ,
hired Bill Gates as my
pool boy and saved the world.......


Dave

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