[Patents] Obviousness (was: consultation questions)

[phenden@tdab.com (Peter Henden)]

Pierre BREESE wrote:

> Probably, Barnes & Nobles tried to demonstrate that Amazon's patent
> claims was null, without success. May be, you are in possession of
> prior art proves neglected or ignored by B&N's patent agents.
> But by conscious that a patent litigation is not just an open
> discussion, and you can't just assert "this invention is obvious".

No, and that's the problem. I have - as have countless other
developers - used techniques and problem solutions that are now
patented long before the patent applications were filed. How do
I prove this? The solutions are not published, and at the time
I didn't give a second thought to it, because I found the solutions
obvious, as did those who reviewed the code and designs.

If this had happened in one or two cases, I'd not consider this
a problem, but I have "infringed" hundreds of patents long be-
fore they were filed. This is pure thievery.

Regards,
Peter Henden