User: ShaneOwara

Re: employer not necessarily evil

On: What's A Reluctant Inventor To Do?

Your employer's purpose may be entirely defensive.... sometimes the best way to deter a claim for patent infringement is to have ammuntion -- i.e., patents -- with which you can counter-claim.

Many companies build up a mass of patents so they have some sort of patent "throw weight". An example:

Company I, with a large cabal of lawyers, seeks out a possible infringer -- Company S (a juicy up-and-coming corporation with a sufficient amount of money) -- and demands tribute. Company I has so many patents that the cabal can easily come up with a weighty document explaining how, in cases A through Z, Company S has used ideas which are patented by Company I.

Fortunately, Company S has a large stash of patents and its own cabal of attorneys. It can turn around and point out where the Company I has infringed on its patents. Yet another weighty legal document is written, and a certain amount of dancing around ensues.

Both parties smile at one another. A third weighty legal document, involving all sorts of twisty cross-licensing, is written. It's a zero-sum end result; both companies practice business and development just as they had before, with little practical change.

Of course, if a company with a big patent library goes up against one without its own stash, the result is much more one-sided. Hence the motivation for corporate lawyers to build up their client's breadth of patent coverage.

The Crimson: Harvard says banning not likely

On: Metallica Vs. Harvard

The Harvard Crimson, that shining example of journalistic prowess, has an article on this situation here:

http://www.thecrimson.harvard.edu/news/article.asp ?ref=8640

In it, University Attorney Allan Ryan is quoted as saying "I don't think there's an obligation to prevent our users from accessing protected material over the Internet." This statement is apparently from an interview conducted last spring.