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by adovenmuehle
5766 days ago
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Perhaps it's an act of intimidation, more than likely it was placed on the product years in the past and it would cost the company a lot of money to take the patent number off. Also, if I'm looking to make a competing product, and I see a patent number on a similar product, would it not make sense for me to check if the patent is still in effect? I'm not just going to see a patent number and say to myself, "oh shoot, they already got it, guess that's the end of that." And from a consumer perspective, do I really care if there is a patent for this product or not? My compromise would be to say the company would be required to have the patent numbers taken off and perhaps a fine to the USPTO, but why should this lawyer get money? |
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As for patent number stamped on the product itself, I bet if the company took the stamping tool off the machine, or filled in the patent number part of the mold, it would cost a day or two and a few $K. I bet the law (judges, regulatory agencies, etc) would be willing to make exceptions for "if it was manufactured while the patent was valid, there is no need to retroactively remove the number.
Your other points -- general advice is to not look into patents when creating things, seriously google it. Consumers don't care about the patent, but that is a strawman. Consumers do care about shady business practices, which this falls under.
As for why the lawyer should get money? He is willing to look for the violations of the law, he can get rewarded for it. Further, it is probably far more efficient than the amount tax money the USPTO would waste enforcing this poorly.