Re: OT: Software patent FUD?

["R. J. Cronk" <rjc06c () GMAIL COM>]

A patent owner can prevent anyone from making, *using *or selling an
invention that contravenes the patent.  For example, lets say one had a
patent on a widget building machine.  Company A sells a widget building
machine to Company B to make widgets.  The patent owner could prevent
Company A from making the widget building machines and from selling the
machines.  He could also prevent Company B from using the widget building
machines.  However, he couldn't prevent Company B from selling widgets
which they made not using the widget building machine (maybe the
alternative is doing it by hand).

As an example, back in 2004, Acacia Research tried to sue websites and
cable providers using technology they said infringed their streaming media
patents.  They didn't sue the companies providing the technology (Real
Media, Microsoft, Apple) but they went after companies using the technology
purchased from those providers.  There strategy hinged on the fact that the
smaller users didn't have the resources to fight a major patent battle and
would license the patents giving Acacia a war chest with which to
eventually sue the larger companies.


-- 
*R. Jason Cronk,* *Esq., CIPP*
(828) 4RJCESQ
rjc () privacymaverick com
blog.privacymaverick.com




On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 6:10 PM, Steve Bohrer <skbohrer () simons-rock edu>wrote:

> I expect most of us are not lawyers, and I'm not either, but I just wanted
> to check on a common sense level (Not, of course, that common sense is
> necessarily relevant to legal action.)
>
> As far as software patents go, my basic thought is that there is a big
> difference between being a consumer of infringing software, vs. being a
> developer of the infringing software. I'd always assumed that buying a
> commercial product meant you did not have any particular responsibility for
> any potential patent infringement problems of the product.
>
> For example, if I buy a GM car, and then someone sues GM for infringing a
> patent, I'm pretty sure they can't come after me and sue me as a patent
> infringer just because I was driving my car. I don't, as far as I know,
> need any special language in my car-buying-contract to protect me from any
> patent sins that GM might have committed. If someone does successfully sue
> GM over a patent issue about my car, and GM can't settle, would I then need
> to stop using the infringing car? That could be a hassle, but is still much
> a much lesser problem than being sued as an infringer. Even if it came to
> loss of the car, seems like GM would owe me a refund, since they'd sold me
> a car that turned out to not be usable.
>
> Steve Bohrer
> Network Admin
> Bard College at Simon's Rock
> 413-528-7645