[dctoedt]

> The concept/idea is not what is patented. The patent is (or should be) for the specific execution of the idea. Competitors are free to implement their feature using methods other that what is covered by the patent, even if the end result gives the exact same functionality.

IP lawyer here (EDIT: not yours, of course): That's a considerable (and potentially-dangerous) oversimplification. What matters is whether what you do comes within the claims of the patent.

(For a more-detailed explanation, written in pseudocode-like terms, see a 2010 post I did: https://www.oncontracts.com/how-patent-claims-work-a-variety....)

[dmoy]

Yea, this is a more correct explanation. Not a patent lawyer, but raised by one lol.

Tangentially, it gets difficult in software because a lot of patents are .... maybe overbroad in their wording of claims. Lot of ambiguous looking landmines.

This is somewhat similar to business method patents (which were curtailed a little by the SC a decade ago, but were already known to be kinda sketchy for decade+ before that). Can't patent a pure algorithm, for example.

[david-gpu]

At some point I was told to never ever look at a competitor's patents, because doing so would worsen the penalties if it turned out that our design infringed upon them. Can you confirm that's true?

Doesn't that mean that in general it is also a really bad idea to ask an engineer questions about a particular piece of tech that they patented at a previous employer, even though the specific information is a matter of public record by virtue of being explained in the patent?

[toast0]

Willful infringement allows for up to triple damages. The expectation is you can't do willful infringement if you're not aware of competitor's patents, and you can't be aware of them if your policy is to never look at patent documents. Or that's the idea anyway.

[dctoedt]

> The expectation is you can't do willful infringement if you're not aware of competitor's patents, and you can't be aware of them if your policy is to never look at patent documents. Or that's the idea anyway.

"Willful blindness" can be a danger (according to the Supreme Court, albeit in a different context).

Possibly a bigger danger: Your product gets kicked out of the market by an injunction (a court order to stop making, using, selling, etc.)

[pierat]

Just search it in Yandex with a VPN, and in a Tails VM just for paranoid-icity.

I did similar for medical self-symptom before ACA prevented "pre-existing condition" scam.

[teddyh]

That stuff is exactly what the Tor Browser is for: <https://www.torproject.org/download/>. No need for any of that other stuff.

[IG_Semmelweiss]

Question, in this case, is it a violation of patents + trade secrets, or just the patents?

[dmoy]

The case in the original article is not patents at all. Closer to copyright? Idk if it's actually copyright or some other trade secret law (? sorry, don't know much about non-patent IP law)