Quote:
Originally posted by boobmaster
How can you infringe on their patents if you didn't know their patents existed until they told you? Don't you have to 'knowingly' infringe on a patent to violate it? If they send me a registered letter and I stop infringing on their (soon-to-be-reversed) patents, how can they sue me? And what would be the point?
|
What thing that sucks about Patent Law is that you could be infringing upon a legitimate patent claim and never know it until they hit you up with infringement claims.
Patent Law also allows them to get retro license fees to the first day you started using someone else's patent. They could also just tell you to shut your business down and not offer you a patent.
The FTC just recently proposed that prior infringement should not count unless you have first been put on notice. This is a great step in helping patent reform, but it's still a long way off.
So you don't have to know about a patent to be infringing.
If you were 'knowingly infringing' then they could get treble damages.
It will take a patent attorney and about $10K to pay for an opinion paper in order to prove that you are not knowingly infringing... it gets complicated.
The point of them suing people is to get licenses.... the figure it's cheaper for you to settle, than have the money to defend yourself in court.... while we may believe the patent claims to be bogus, only a court of law will decide the validity of the patent... until then, defendants like Home Grown Video and the 10 other companies are just waiting for their day in court.
It's a very expensive fight they are putting on, one that once they are able to knock down this patent, they don't get their money back for money spent on attorney fees!
So these 11 defendants are the true heroes, and are fighting for ALL webmaster's rights to have audio/video.
For more info about Acacia, check out
http://www.FightThePatent.com/go I have a regularly updated Acacia FAQ along with info about the proposed Fight the Patent Foundation.
Fight the Anti-Heroes!