Seth Goodman writes: > If someone violates your patent and you fail to defend it in any > meaningful way, you are considered to have abandoned the patent and it > becomes effectively void.
This is not true. You are confounding patents and trademarks. > My non-lawyer understanding is that for all intents and purposes, if a > patent is widely ignored and the patent owner neither warns the > infringers nor initiates legal action against any of them, you are pretty > safe doing what everyone else is doing. Said patent owner might not be awarded damages for past infringement but he can still start enforcing his patent. He _might_ lose his patent if it can be shown that he misused it, but I don't think mere non-enforcement qualifies. -- John Hasler -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
