Something that I didn’t know until recently is that although a lot of the general public thinks that the patent office goes over every patent with a fine-toothed comb, if there’s ever anything which isn’t completely obvious, the patent office is happy to just award the patent and let the courts deal with it if it turns out to be something which shouldn’t have a patent on it.
which means the big companies seem to have a bit more incentive to file them since they can fight them. a small company won’t file if they know it’s wrong because they will just be asking for court fees. do not file, and some big company does and sues you for royalties. the patent fights are generally big company vs big company with patent buyouts and patent filings done seemingly for defensive purposes. smaller companies will have to just cross their fingers to innovate in such an area.
Something that I didn’t know until recently is that although a lot of the general public thinks that the patent office goes over every patent with a fine-toothed comb, if there’s ever anything which isn’t completely obvious, the patent office is happy to just award the patent and let the courts deal with it if it turns out to be something which shouldn’t have a patent on it.
which means the big companies seem to have a bit more incentive to file them since they can fight them. a small company won’t file if they know it’s wrong because they will just be asking for court fees. do not file, and some big company does and sues you for royalties. the patent fights are generally big company vs big company with patent buyouts and patent filings done seemingly for defensive purposes. smaller companies will have to just cross their fingers to innovate in such an area.
tl;dr it kinda sucks.
I don’t see an issue date nor patent number. Have they been ‘granted’ one, or just filed?
I saw this post from Justin Waldron, co-founder of Zynga http://www.evernote.com/shard/s136/sh/236c4824-74a5-4d84-bc8d-bf54cb4d3e2f/5d90507534b7f1a02e57598cc9d980d3
oh. I guess their website is just confusing. Regardless, 8'C