[8461] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Multimedia has been patented
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Barry Shein)
Fri Nov 19 19:14:28 1993
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1993 19:12:41 -0500
From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
To: stpeters@dawn.crd.ge.com
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: Dick St.Peters's message of Fri, 19 Nov 93 18:43:51 EST <9311192343.AA00565@spare-parts.crd.Ge.Com>
>From: stpeters@spare-parts.crd.ge.com (Dick St.Peters) [responding to me]
>> This is government (almost) at its worst, irresponsibly assigning (and
>> intending to enforce) broad and destructive monopolies.
>
>It's worth noting that the government does not enforce patents. It
>is up to the patent holder to take cases to court, where both the
>case and the patent itself are subject to scrutiny.
That's the govt enforcing patents. Who do you think enforces court
decisions or gives any authority to them?
Try ignoring a (significant) court decision and see who comes a
knockin'.
>so
>most patent "enforcement" is based on a judgement that it's cheaper
>to pay up than fight. This tends to keep the fees small.
It wouldn't be cheaper to pay up w/o the govt enforcing the patents as
a concept that holds up in court, and running the courts, and
enforcing court decisions, etc.
C'mon, this is just civics 101, nothing subtle here.
>The patent office tend to view its role as that of a high-pass
>filter for the courts. The granting of a patent is not so much an
>endorsement as a statement that the applicant was persistent and the
>PO couldn't find a definitive reason not to grant the patent.
So you think I could bring someone into court for using my
technological invention *without* a patent in hand (other than as
covered by trade secret, copyright, etc.)?
>I'd like to see industry fight this one rather than cave in, but the
>usual tactic is to sue one company at a time. Other companies are
>often all too happy to have a competitor burdened with the cost and
>distraction of the lawsuit while they go after its business.
Or, perhaps even worse, pay a license fee on the hopes that their
smaller competitors can't afford it and thus flounder. Tho this
particular one lays claim to a percentage of net which tends to level
that playing field (wouldn't be shocked tho if some multi-billion
dollar company offered a much smaller but in absolute terms large
licensing fee that they wouldn't take it.)
-Barry Shein
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