[time-nuts] patents and hobbyist projects (was: Temperature controlled TCVCXO)

timenut at metachaos.net timenut at metachaos.net
Sun May 15 21:08:35 EDT 2016


If I understand it correctly, you only violate a patent if you manufacture and
SELL a product covered by the patent. If you build it for yourself, then there
is no violation. Even if you are a company, and you build one for testing and
evaluation, as long as you don't sell it there is no violation. That is
because there is no "harm" to the patent holder. They have to show that your
production affected their potential sales and rights to profit from the
patent. If you build a bunch and GIVE them away, that counts as a violation as
well. Of course, giving is just selling with a zero price.

Michael

> In addition to what others write about nobody will come after you for
> hobbyist/testing purposes...

> It is surprisingly easy for a patent non-professional to be confused, about
> what a patent actually covers (claims) vs does not cover (claim).

> There is a section called "description" that is useful and interesting for
> techie guys. Especially when the patent was the result of a actual real
> device, anyone skilled in the field will be able to read the "description"
> section of a patent and figure out the device and learn something from the
> patent. The "citations" and "referred to by" are usually interesting
> reading too.

> Beyond that, there is a section called "claims" that actually sets out the
> legal language about what the inventors, and their patent lawyers, and the
> patent examiner, eventually decided (probably over a period of months to
> years) could be patented. Reading the claim section is surprisingly tricky.
> Lots of interesting things (to you and me) in the description are probably
> not actually claimed because they were claimed by previous patents (See the
> patent citations at the bottom). When I'm in a room with the patent lawyers
> and they are telling me how to read it, I can manage to follow them and
> even learn a little bit of the patent phrase-ology in a way that makes
> sense to me. These lessons in patent phrase-ology stick with me for only a
> matter of days after we leave the room. The language of the claims is very
> highly specialized, and even further the patent lawyers have "optimized"
> the claims, so that base claims are elaborated on in a very complicated and
> ornate way in later claims such that a challenge to any one claim of the
> patent will have minimized the effect on negating the whole patent.

> Tim N3QE

> On Sat, May 14, 2016 at 5:56 AM, Attila Kinali <attila at kinali.ch> wrote:

>> On Fri, 13 May 2016 19:32:58 -0500
>> David <davidwhess at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > Thanks for those.  I went over them pretty carefully and what I am
>> > proposing is not covered by either although that would not protect me
>> > from a debilitating patent lawsuit.
>>
>> I wouldn't worry about patent lawsuits at all unless you intend to
>> start a multi-million business.
>>
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-- 
Best regards,
 Timenut                            mailto:timenut at metachaos.net



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