[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.