Hi, all!
I agree with most of the correspondents here but wish to add my 2 c worth.
Before I retired, I owned a very small company which prized itself on its innovation -
still own it, in fact, but that's another story :-)
In the early days, I patented a few inventions. Large companies copied it. What the
hell could we do about it? Nothing except have our patent attorneys write a stinker of
a letter to them, which had no effect. We did not have enough ready lolly to pay even
the retainer that an attorney would require to take the offending company to court,
compounded by the fact that the offender was in another country. The violator of our
rights got away with murder. Conclusion: the patent - which our local attorney agreed
was valid and the the infringement was blatant - was not worth the paper it was written
on, let alone what we paid for it.
Then there was the case when a large US company accused us of infringing one of their
patents and demanded royalties. Our attorney advised us that it seemed unlikely that an
infringement was taking place, but one could never tell how a court would decide. He
advised us to ignore the request to stop production or pay royalties and to see what
would transpire. If we were taken to court, we would be driven to bankruptcy (win or
lose) which would serve no one any good. Negotiations with the company, also desirous
of not losing money, led to a shaky oral agreement restricting our geographical
activities (we were on different continents) until the said company was bought out by a
multinational which agreed that what we were doing was in the public domain.
I therefore concluded that, for small companies, obtaining patents was a total waste of
money. Subsequently, we adopted another technique. If we thought we had something
patentable, we developed it, in secret, to actual production stages. When we were ready
to launch it, for a couple of hundred dollars or so, we filed a patent application and
then paid no further fees, so that the application lapsed in a matter of months. In
this way, we established our prior art and no one else could patent it or exclude us in
a way which was underhand as we had the formal application filed. Our protection was
the six or twelve months lead we had on the competition before they realised it had
fallen into the public domain by not paying the fees and the fact that it was already
on the market in that time.
The great danger is that someone patents your invention (possibly in another country)
after you have published it. This does happen because a search by a patent office may
not reveal the prior art. To establish that you have prior art after a patent has been
granted is a VERY costly business, not to mention that you may be dunned for royalties
on your own invention. I consider that the risk is much reduced by the procedure
outlined in the last paragraph, because the search is made through patent office
archives much more frequently than through other publications.
Our patent attorney always said that if a claim was more than four lines long, you
could probably drive a horse and cart through it, anyway.
In conclusion: if you are a billionaire with loads of fun money, by all means patent
your inventions and enforce action against any infringement. If you are an ordinary guy
in the street, protect yourself by spending a few hundred bucks but do not patent an
invention because the big boys know you cannot defend your idea.
I think that lot is more than 2 cents worth ???? :-)
Brian
Ryan Grant wrote:
> I hear you loud and clear Paul. I'm not a fan of patents in general.
> ESPECIALLY when a tangible product is not made before the patent. For
> example, the guy that has a patent on the vision systems used on pick and
> place machines.
>
> At the risk of being flamed, I think most patents get in the way of
> technological development. Very few individuals hold patents; the company
> they work for hold the patent. So in a sense, an individuals idea is being
> stolen by the company they work for anyway since that individual can't take
> their patented idea to the next company they work for.
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Paul Klasek [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> > Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2000 3:32 PM
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: Re: [TN] wave soldering - board rotation
> >
> > Oh, what slip !, guilty, Graham, my friend (hope so); could you please
> > disregard my last note on this motto,
> > before we'll get before Judge Judy, please !
> > Being old lab rat aka Bev i forgot to patent it 15 years ago !
> >
> > Reminds me (be vewy, vewy vary) ResMed just acquired a global patent for
> > enclosing flexible acoustic noise shield;
> > to shield few frequencies out for our blissfully sleeping patients .
> > For those less technically minded IT'S A MOTOR IN PLASTIC BAG !
> > (nooo kidding ; with 2 full time lawyers); should you consider to run any
> > beast in a plastic wrap for ACOUSTIC purpose;
> > here yo are, for a wet purpose quite free and legal . Sad hey ?
> >
> > Don't ask me about heat dissipation ; that is A serious art better not
> > patented as not to advertise it .
> >
> > Paul Klasek
> > ResMed
> >
> > PS
> > My apologies Ryan (one never knows this millenium)
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Ryan Grant [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> > Sent: Friday, 28 January 2000 7:45
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: Re: [TN] wave soldering - board rotation
> >
> >
> > Hi Graham,
> > I can't speak from experience, but we have some plaques in our
> > hallway bragging that our engineers hold the patent on the idea.
> > Apparently
> > it does work. Now we use selective solder pallets, and most boards we
> > build
> > are too big to rotate anyway. So I can't tell you first hand that it
> > works.
> >
> > Ryan G.
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Collins, Graham [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> > > Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2000 10:45 AM
> > > To: [log in to unmask]
> > > Subject: [TN] wave soldering - board rotation
> > >
> > > Is the TechNet back up? Yippee!
> > >
> > > Good day TechNet!
> > > Has anyone out in wave soldering land tried using a wave soldering
> > fixture
> > > that allows you to change the rotation of the board so that the edge of
> > > the
> > > board isn't parallel to the conveyor?
> > >
> > > I'm told that rotating the board slightly (say 5 degrees - not 90
> > > degrees!)
> > > can reduce the
> > > occurrence of solder skips on SMT chips (caps and resistors). Any
> > > experience out there to confirm or deny this?
> > >
> > > Final note: the board design is not suitable for a paste reflow of the
> > SMT
> > > parts followed by use of a partial wave fixture. Otherwise that would
> > be
> > > my
> > > #1 choice...
> > >
> > > regards,
> > >
> > > Graham Collins
> > > Process Engineer,
> > > Litton Systems Canada, Atlantic Facility
> > > (902) 873-2000 ext 6215
> > >
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