On Mon, Jul 23, 2018 at 10:42:11AM -0400, Chapman Flack wrote:
> On 07/23/2018 10:25 AM, Bruce Momjian wrote:
>
> >> Isn't 'defensive', in patent-speak, used to mean 'establishing prior
> >> art usable to challenge future patent claims by others on the same
> >> technique'?
> >>
> >> Is there any way that conditions of use, or lack of them, on an
> >> existing patent, would make it unusable in that context?
> >
> > It doesn't have to be a patent on the same technique; this URL was
> > referenced in the thread:
> >
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_termination
>
> Ah, a very different understanding of defensive use of a patent,
> and one that I can see would lose force if there could be no
> conditions on its use.
>
> I was thinking more of the use of a filing to establish prior art
> so somebody else later can't obtain and enforce a patent on
> the technique that you're already using. Something along the lines
> of a statutory invention registration[1], which used to be a thing
> in the US, but now apparently is not, though any filed, published
> application, granted or abandoned, can serve the same purpose.
>
> That, I think, would still work.
Yes, those preemptive patent approaches work too.
--
Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> http://momjian.us
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