Doesn't sound like they accidentally stepped on a vague patent to me.
https://www.usitc.gov/system/files?file=secretary/fed_reg_no...
Sorry, nothing was forcibly publicly disclosed here. These guys got patent protection, the public got nothing.
I don't particularly think so. Patents are meant for a person of "ordinary skill" in the art. I don't make these devices. I'm not a person equipped to offer an opinion on whether the patent discloses sufficient information.
>Sorry, nothing was forcibly publicly disclosed here. These guys got patent protection, the public got nothing.
The way the invention works is what is disclosed. Patents aren't blueprints. It's even more ridiculous that you are making this comment when Apple seems to have infringed.
What is this? Are they some form of slaves? If company doesn't want its employees "poached" they should pay them enough money so they don't think of "switching sides".
This notion that corporations can own people and their brains should stop.
If we going that route, we might be bringing back slavery by the backdoor.
The Masimo case should have been thrown out.
Just imagine you are an engineer with amazing and unique skillset but you were unfortunate enough to pick wrong employer. You get a new offer from someone who sees your potential and could give you tools you need to help you do what you love.
With this kind of precedent, companies won't touch you with a barge pole even if you ticked all the boxes and you really don't want to work where you are.
It's bad for workers and for progress in general.
Hiring a team and rebuilding something that is not patented, or that skirts the edge of a patent, that's just fine. Hiring the team and building the patented thing is bad, not because of hiring the team, but because of building the patented thing. That it's the same team is just evidence that it infringes on the patent.
Generally speaking, the patents should describe the invention in such a way that anyone competent in the field could recreate it. So I don't see how the fact the Apple has hired that team has any relevance to this.
Maybe the patents should have been invalidated too.
(I don't think patents need to be entirely eliminated, but they need drastic reform. The patent system should be an incentive to small inventors, not a pay-to-play shield for big corporations. Obviously eliminating software/algorithm patents, eliminating "thing but with a computer" patents, shortening the entitlement period, mandating FRAND with full transparency around licensing fees, possibly even capping lifetime license fee revenue at $100m or so.)
Perhaps I don't know the basic dynamics of patent litigation. You're an expert, could you enlighten me?
Yeah, FRAND is pro-big business. It removes the upper limit on damages, i.e. minimizes the risk a business faces by infringing, which therefore minimizes any incentive to license a patent. It also reduces the incentive for a patentee to enforce their patent, as it takes ~$2-3m to litigate against a company like Apple through trial (not even appeals). Because of the upfront costs to enforcement, any small-time inventor is going to need a financier to back their case.
>Your line of argumentation seems specious.
My argument seems specious? You keep saying compliance... compliance with what? you haven't even made an argument, you just associate a few buzzwords and say "thing bad". You haven't explained anyway how FRAND and "compliance" are pro-small time inventor.
And yeah, I’m using the word compliance in the straightforward, obvious way. If that’s a problem for you, I don’t think this discussion is ever going to be useful.
Think about it. If legislation can make FRAND mandatory, it can also make the penalties sufficiently unfavourable to large corporations. Perhaps, and I’m just spitballing here, back pay for non-compliance could have a defined multiplier. Then there could be an additional multiplier for non-compliance after the date a complaint is made by the patent holder. And a further additional multiplier for non-compliance if the corporation has revenues over $100 million annually.
That’s literally the first idea that came to my dumbass ignorant head and I’m sure there’s a dozen much better ones out there. The key point is that the system can be built in such a way that a patent holder doesn’t need a team of lawyers with clever tricks to be entitled to favourable outcomes. Standardise it all and you reduce the dynamic range of advantage between parties of different size.
I'm a patent litigator - nobody uses the word compliance in this field. It's not me that is making this conversation difficult. It's your apparent ignorance and obtuseness.
> Think about it. If legislation can make FRAND mandatory, it can also make the penalties sufficiently unfavourable to large corporations
Do you even know what FRAND stands for? Is this a joke?
>Perhaps, and I’m just spitballing here, back pay for non-compliance could have a defined multiplier. Then there could be an additional multiplier for non-compliance after the date a complaint is made by the patent holder. And a further additional multiplier for non-compliance if the corporation has revenues over $100 million annually.
Compliance WITH WHAT???
>The key point is that the system can be built in such a way that a patent holder doesn’t need a team of lawyers with clever tricks to be entitled to favourable outcomes.
Patentees don't need clever tricks, they just need to prove infringement. That's the only hard part. You skip past that entirely. I think that's what you mean by compliance, but you don't seem to have any idea how any of this actually works. Which is bizarre considering you are offering recommendations on how to improve something that you do not understand.
With the licensing of patents? Duh?
> I'm a patent litigator
Ah. I'm reminded of the famous quote — "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." Community discussions are wher you talk with other people, not to win on a technicality in a courtroom.
> nobody uses the word compliance in this field
I'm sorry that the word compliance isn't sufficiently in-group for you. Perhaps tell people that you want to gate-keep rather than discuss, as it'll save other people a lot of time.
Licensing isn't a compliance matter. There's no enforcement entity. It's all just civil litigation and party's deciding things on their own.
>Ah. I'm reminded of the famous quote — "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." Community discussions are wher you talk with other people, not to win on a technicality in a courtroom.
I'm not trying to win on a technicality here, all I did was explain to you that your understanding of patent incentives was wrong and based on incorrect facts.
>I'm sorry that the word compliance isn't sufficiently in-group for you. Perhaps tell people that you want to gate-keep rather than discuss, as it'll save other people a lot of time.
It's not that it isn't sufficiently in group, it's that it is without meaning in this context.
> Perhaps tell people that you want to gate-keep rather than discuss, as it'll save other people a lot of time.
I've been engaging in discourse with you. You refuse to come to the table and recognize what's actually going on, just repeating yourself and your misunderstandings.
>Ah. I'm reminded of the famous quote — "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
You have no idea what you are talking about. I'm plaintiff side. Anything pro small-inventor would be for my own benefit. Getting my client a license is preferable to trial. The thing is, the big companies never want to license because they can just force me to have to take them to trial, where we risk losing, or losing on appeal. You'd behove yourself to actually attempt to grok at least one of my posts instead of just typing "but compliance"
It literally is. I'm sorry that you can't English. I'm out.
It's fairly specific about an arrangement of sensors with specific capabilities.