Re: [Patents] Suing uninformed customers

[Xavi Drudis Ferran <xdrudis@tinet.org>]

El Mon, Jan 26, 2004 at 01:38:48AM +0100, Hartmut Pilch deia:
> 
> I think it's a normal consequence of having a patent system.  Not just 
> the producer but everybody in the chain from production to consumption
> potentially infringes and must make sure the patent liabilities are 
> cleared.  
>

I thought a proper criteria of industrial application should somehow
limit this possibility (without completely preventing it). There's 
some intuition that industrial property should be a concern for industries
only, not customers. If one patents a better mousetrap, one expects only 
people manufacturing or selling mousetraps to be affected, not customers
trapping rats.

Of course information processing patents are specially hopeless, since 
the customer's computer is the one performing any patented process.
 
> The customer should have a contract with the manufacturer by which the
> latter is held liable for any patent infringement.  Rockwell's customers
> apparently did have such contracts.  Usually probably any customer will
> have such a contract by default (principle of "exhaustion").
> 
> I don't understand why Rockwell's customers don't just wait until 
> Solaia and Scavenge (the patent extortionists) take them to court and
> then hand their defense over to Rockwell.
> 
> Is there any reason of legal procedure why this can't happen?
> 

No idea about exhaustion, but I guess it makes good FUD anyway and could 
make good enough marketing until any lawsuit is decided.


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Xavi Drudis Ferran
xdrudis@tinet.org