I've had similar interaction with American companies and their lawyers in the past, and basically told them to sue in NL or get lost. They never did.
Nothing more annoying than these legal parasites.
I received a patent infringement email for my weekend project (2010)
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Re: I received a patent infringement email for my weekend project (2010)
#12It's a real travesty that law suits cost money. It basically ensures the one with the deepest pockets has the largest chance of winning. I would love to see a country that doesn't allow commercial lawyers for lawsuits. But instead both parties get a randomly assigned lawyer from the state. The party that is suing also has to pay a sum of money which they get back if the case is deemed non-ridiculous.
this isn't that far off from how some european systems work. for example, in the UK[0], if you lose a lawsuit, you have to pay not only your attorney's fees, but the other party's attorneys fees. It gets very expensive. As a result, some percentage of valid claims are not filed because the losing party cannot bear the risk of losing. 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_rule_(attorney%27s_fee...
Fortunately those fees are capped at something reasonable and rarely approach the actual costs. Still, it is a risk that you probably shouldn't take for a hobby project, it's all downside and very little upside.
Re: I received a patent infringement email for my weekend project (2010)
#13Those patents are apparently no longer valid in the Netherlands. Their status is: "Lapsed by non-payment of annual fee Art. 62 ROW" [1]. So he could publish the source I guess?
[1] https://mijnoctrooi.rvo.nl/fo-eregister-view/#/query/KGFhbnZ...
Re: I received a patent infringement email for my weekend project (2010)
#14Former patent examiner here. One problem I've seen time and time again with respect to patents on Hacker News is that people don't read the patent claims, the legally enforceable part of a patent. They just assume that because some journalist or blogger or attorney or whatnot says that this patent covers something, it must cover all instances of that. And that would be a big problem, preventing people from using a technology that should be available to the public. But the reality often is that what the patent covers is quite narrow. Yes, mistakes happen in granting patents, but not as frequently as people here seem to think.
Example of this phenomena on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30387833
The claims there don't cover as much as people think they do! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30388857
While I've never been involved on the litigation side of patents, if I received an email like this, I'd ask for not only the patent numbers but also a detailed "mapping" of how my product is infringing. The mapping is what I had to do as a patent examiner. Just show how my product infringes on the claims. That's what would have to be done in court, after all.
If they claim
A widget consisting of 3 bars.
[0] "Consisting of" in patents means exactly. If they said "comprising" then 4 bars would infringe as they could point to any 3 of the 4. You need to know a little legalese, sure, but it's not hard.
Re: I received a patent infringement email for my weekend project (2010)
#15> The two example patent numbers that I sent you are U.S. patents, but each of these patents has also been filed as patent applications in the Netherlands. Also, as I’m sure you are aware, your blogpost may be viewed internationally. As a result, you may contribute to someone infringing our patents in any part of the world. This seems like a gross misunderstanding of patent- and IP-law. I can't know this, but I stron…
Indeed, if the definition of patent in the EU is anything close to what it is in the USA, publishing an article, source code, or really anything else about the patent or how it works is not infringement. The entire purpose of a patent is to explain how something non-trivial works. The word means “make obvious”.
A patent isn’t some magical license to stifle discussion of a topic. It’s supposed to encourage it!
Re: I received a patent infringement email for my weekend project (2010)
#16the first time i encountered this algorithm it was in a class and the paper was presented. i wonder if the paper existed when this all happened.
glad to read he called their bluff. rewarding threatening behavior rarely leads anywhere good and only encourages more bad behavior.
Re: I received a patent infringement email for my weekend project (2010)
#17> The two example patent numbers that I sent you are U.S. patents, but each of these patents has also been filed as patent applications in the Netherlands. Also, as I’m sure you are aware, your blogpost may be viewed internationally. As a result, you may contribute to someone infringing our patents in any part of the world. This seems like a gross misunderstanding of patent- and IP-law. I can't know this, but I stron…
Indeed, if the definition of patent in the EU is anything close to what it is in the USA, publishing an article, source code, or really anything else about the patent or how it works is not infringement. The entire purpose of a patent is to explain how something non-trivial works. The word means “make obvious”. A patent isn’t some magical license to stifle discussion of a topic. It’s supposed to encourage it!
You're correct that parents provide a monopoly on working an invention and do not legally inhibit publicising an invention (as you note, that is one of their aims).
>The word means “make obvious”.//
"Patent" means "open", it comes from a Latin phrase meaning "open letter". Patents were originally letters from the monarch to their subjects on all sorts of issues. When monopolies were granted on working inventions people were notified by the issue of a litterae patentes (some people still style it "letters patent" in British English). This mode of acquiring rights stuck and the name became synonymous.
Patents do have to disclose in detail how an invention can be worked ('sufficiency' in UK law).
Re: I received a patent infringement email for my weekend project (2010)
#18In case the blog disappears
* https://archive.ph/kkebe OP blog, does not seem to infringe anything
* https://archive.ph/PjIVA Another blog, explains shazam
Re: I received a patent infringement email for my weekend project (2010)
#19Former patent examiner here. One problem I've seen time and time again with respect to patents on Hacker News is that people don't read the patent claims, the legally enforceable part of a patent. They just assume that because some journalist or blogger or attorney or whatnot says that this patent covers something, it must cover all instances of that. And that would be a big problem, preventing people from using a te…
Can you recommend a good reference/source for translating legalese? I'm not sure I've ever found a good source for determining which words should be interpreted normally and which are landmines.
The ambiguity about what words mean may be part of why people assume patents are so broad. Most people know that some words and phrases, when used in a legal context, have vastly different (more specific, broader, or even completely disconnected) meanings than what you'd expect in normal writing or speech. Without knowing what those are, the safe approach is to ascribe the least favorable possible meaning to every word. "Does language X mean Y" becomes "could language X possibly be interpreted by someone who doesn't understand the material to kinda vaguely reference Y," and you get the type of broad assumptions you're lamenting here.
Re: I received a patent infringement email for my weekend project (2010)
#20It's a real travesty that law suits cost money. It basically ensures the one with the deepest pockets has the largest chance of winning. I would love to see a country that doesn't allow commercial lawyers for lawsuits. But instead both parties get a randomly assigned lawyer from the state. The party that is suing also has to pay a sum of money which they get back if the case is deemed non-ridiculous.
> It's a real travesty that law suits cost money > The party that is suing also has to pay a sum of money How much thought have you given to this?
I know you are joking. But if you had actually understood the rest of the comment you wouldn't be asking this question.