Suing Over... Fans? 166
NiceGeek hooked us up with an amusing story about assorted legal
wackiness surrounding
CPU Fans. Apparently one company is suing another because they are
(gasp) stealing advanced fan technology and violating patents! Horror! The
sad part is that its probably true. Someone needs to write a perl script to take this story, and s/x/y/g the names and technologies, and then feed every company and technology into it. Then create an archive of every possible violation lawsuit. Then patent the idea,
and sue anyone who violates it. Just cut me in for thinking of it ;)
Re:Why the hostility Cmdr Taco? (Score:1)
Re:Time for a meta-patent? (Score:1)
and this is just a commodity item! (Score:1)
At least it's a ligitimate patent... (Score:1)
At least it's not something we've all come to despise like Amazon's bullshit one click patent, and the countless other patents we've seen reported on
Re:suing? (Score:1)
Keeping customers happy is simply a tool that they use to accomplish this goal, not a goal in and of itself.
Why on earth is this "wacky"? (Score:1)
A lot of expensive development goes into making good fans, and the company involved has every right to defend their IP. As an engineer, I'm disgusted that you would be so quick to trivialize it.
Of Toilets and Engineering... (Score:1)
Ever looked inside a modern flush mechanism? These babies are an example of some serious engineering! Not rocket science, but still some pretty sophisticated design, not to mention tricks of manufacturing. (BTW, working with precision ceramics can be a bitch!) Look at the parts in there and I'll bet you will find a half dozen or so US Patent numbers stamped in them. Yes, those simple looking ceramic fixtures now do the same work as their 20 year old cousins, but with less than 1/5 the waste water, and probably 1/100 the water that was used by the Romans. Sure, the concept of internal plumbing has been around since the Romans, but they had a lot to learn about water conservation and the mechanics of quiet, reliable, inexpensive, self regulating, automatic shut off valves.
Just because something looks simple doesn't mean it was obvious to create in the first place!!
--
What this MAY be about... (Score:1)
If so, it is indeed quite "non-obvious technology".
Some patents have a point.
Re:This has to be the stupidest thing I've ever he (Score:1)
Because the infringing fans are likely made in Singapore, or some other country that doesn't give a rat's arse for patents. Going after Creative and nVidia allows them to sue under US patent law.
Re:Laugh all you want.. (Score:1)
Yeah, I've got a 486 SX2/25 Overdrive chip insde of a shoebox that doesn't overheat either, but it's got exactly nothing to do with good design.
That said, I want a dual G4 system. With fans. Big ol' quiet patented Sunon fans, 'cause sunon fans are really quite good fans.
Someone almost did. (Score:1)
the dark side of patent fever (Score:1)
-- ;-)
See, you not only have to be a good coder to create a system like Linux,
you have to be a sneaky bastard too
[Linus Torvalds in < 4rikft$7g5@linux.cs.Helsinki.FI > ]
Re:Patents? What defines a patent? (Score:1)
I can infer how to make a fusion reactor from a high-school textbook. That doesn't mean I can patent one.
-B
PS (Score:1)
patenting "i'm gonna patent foo" (Score:1)
Hey, I'm gonna patent "I'm gonna patent" posts and refuse to license it just to save valuable moderator points squashing those posts! It's repetetively redundant!
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Random Slashdot page (Score:1)
I found this last night on BBSpot. [bbspot.com] It's a Random Slashdot story generator. Good for about 10 good laughs, about 3 deja-vu experiences, and for fooling that gullible newbie about 4 times...
Re:Now hang on. (Score:1)
John
Re:This has to be the stupidest thing I've ever he (Score:1)
--John
Re:I patent... the stone hammer! (Score:1)
Indeed. I maintain about three or four dozen machines at this company [thejewelers.com], and the most frequent problem we have is with processor and power-supply fans crapping out. A fair number of our machines are PII-350s or thereabouts, and you can't even get replacement heatsink/fan combos for those anymore. (I usually get some other type of heatsink/fan, throw out the heatsink, and attach the new fan to the old heatsink...a few minutes' work which will be good for another year or two, at which time the fan will probably need to be replaced again.) Power supplies are cheap enough that it's usually cheaper (parts cost vs. downtime) to replace the whole thing than to replace just the fan within, though I've done that with some of my home systems. A few hard drives and a motherboard or two have gone bad over the past couple of years, but it's rare that a month goes by without a fan conking out.
why not transliterate? (Score:1)
-Michael
Re:I patent... the stone hammer! (Score:1)
Re:Harrier Jump Jet Fans (Score:1)
On the other hand, the PC fan will spin at perhaps
50-100 rpm, for weeks or months at a time (on a server), and won't get any maintenance at all.
--
EEyore
Re:Laugh all you want.. (Score:1)
Umm... Crusoe?
--
Alternative uses . . . (Score:1)
Corporate lawyer: Yes! Sue for asinine reasons! Let's see here. Who can we sue?
VP of marketing: Hmmm. We have competitors. Let's sue them for patent infringement to increase our marketshare.
Nvidia's Microfans (Score:1)
I think Sunonwealth is justified here -- ADDA made an inferior product using stolen technology, which could ruin the reputation of microfans in general if they aren't forced to stop.
-c.
--
Suing over fans... (Score:1)
the idea of suing over a fan. You go and spend
several thousand dollars on switching equipment
and the vendor goes and puts a $0.10 fan in it to
"Keep it kewl". THe fan creators over the weekend
and you come back to a pile of goo.
Of course, you could have insane grad students that believe the fan is "too loud" and go into your switch and clip it out.
To borrow a line from Glueleg: Crazy Life Brother
It's really too bad (Score:1)
From us (Score:1)
--------
RTFC (Score:1)
Here are the claims for the patents in question:
These are for particular ways of building fans -- not miniature fans in general. How long have we been cooling 486s with miniature fans?
--
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delenda est Windoze
Re:I once worked at a fan factory (Score:1)
It's worth a fair bit if it is a genuine advance over your competitors, so people are using your fan instead of theirs as a result. /.'ers are probably one of the groups most likely to 'get this' I'd feel, assembling your own systems can mean you're a lot more likely to build brand-loyalty to a fan manufacturer than a 'normal' user.
Lawyers cost, but losing the technology that seperates you from your competitors can cost you your perceived 'Edge', and thus your customers, and thus your business
Molt
Re:Why the hostility Cmdr Taco? (Score:1)
Re:Why the hostility Cmdr Taco? typo correction (Score:1)
of it on nyquil sheesh.
an electronic controlled pro grade r/c servo is prior art to all 3 of these claims. They have been around for a few years. Older servos just use a potentiometer the newer ones use something simular if not identicle to what they claim to patent
My Patent (Score:1)
Re:Why the hostility Cmdr Taco? (Score:1)
Obviously nVidia and Creative must not agree with you, then. After all, they seem to think that it's worth a premium to buy the Cadillac of fans instead of the run of the mill ones. Certainly there are a lot of overclockers who think that the absolute best CPU fan is worth spending money on. It may be that GPU makers are now pushing the limits to the point that they have to push their chips to the very limit in order to get the performance they want, in which case the very best fan may be more necessary than luxury.
In any case, the fact that the patent is being infringed is indirect evidence that it's actually a good idea. After all, people are much more likely to try to steal good ideas than stupid ones. The fact that a company is willing to risk litigation by infringing on a patent rather than just working around it suggests that the idea is worth copying.
Um... (Score:1)
Not as bad as it seems? (Score:1)
Suing over fans - Lars Ulrich? (Score:1)
oh.... those other FANS....
nevermind.
Re:Why the hostility Cmdr Taco? (Score:1)
Re:Why the hostility Cmdr Taco? (Score:1)
I guess if the sensors were to see if the fan was movign at all would make sense, but if you really need to know exactly how many RPM's your CPU fans are pushing, you need a life.
Re:CPU fans do not use normal motors (Score:1)
Re:Of Toilets and Engineering... (Score:1)
You mean a script like this, Taco? (Score:2)
Apollogies if this was on slashdot already, I must have missed it.
*snicker* (Score:2)
-----------------------------
1,2,3,4 Moderation has to Go!
Re:Patent office employees (Score:2)
Re:suing? (Score:2)
[God, I hope someone else has a sense of humor like mine]
Re:Predatation (Score:2)
If you saw my posting on the message thread about Rambus, I said that the famous U.S. v. United Shoe Machinery Company case from 1945 put an end to this way to keep down competitors. What Rambus is trying to do is exactly what United Shoe tried to do to its competition back in the first half of the 20th Century--use its critical patents on shoe-making machinery to destroy the competition. It would be akin to Eli Lilly enforcing its patent on Prozac to the point that no competitive product (Paxil, Zoloft, Effexor, Remeron, etc.) could come to market.
Designing fans... (Score:2)
Or, perhaps, some technologies that would probably be covered by munitions export control laws in the US (I'm thinking of the technology that got Toshiba in trouble some years ago involving ultra-quiet submarine props).
--
Re:Lets not go overboard... (Score:2)
Besides, isn't this fighting over something that's pretty stupid anyways? I mean, who really pays that much attention to their CPU fans anyways? No matter what kind I buy, they seem to last about a year and then the bearings go out in them in. And most of these off-the-shelf pieces of crap you buy at CompUSA or Best Buy or places like that don't even have CPU fans. They're able to get to that sub-$1000 price point by cutting corners, and one place they cut corners is the CPU fan...they just put a nice big heat sink on it and hope that'll be good enough. They figure if your system has random crashes and you're buying one of those (meaning you usually a consumer), you won't give a rats ass...most of those pieces of junk have random crashes, hangs, reboots, BSODs, etc. because of inadequate CPU cooling.
CmdrTaco's cut (Score:2)
Re:Now hang on. (Score:2)
Presumably ADDA simply don't have enough money to make suing them worthwhile. Next time I'll save some bandwidth for vital Napster traffic.
Dave
Re:Why the hostility Cmdr Taco? (Score:2)
So what? Makes no different re: patents (Score:2)
"there are at least a few things about metallurgy, magnetics, lubrication and airflow which are neither obvious nor easy to understand, but are certainly required for engineering an efficient, well-designed, and long-lasting fan"
So what? Designing a good fan might be difficult, but you can't patent something just because it was difficult to make - you can only patent something that is a new and original technique. It may have been difficult to build, but if the basic principles are exactly the same as in Joe Cheap Fan, you can't patent it. You may be able to patent a new type of design for a fan, if the design had something new, original and creative in it to distinguish it technologically from Joe Cheap Fan. Simply making all the parts from better materials, and changing the shape of the blades, does NOT constitute an original technique. A "design" maybe, but that is a different IP concept to the patent. You also may be able to patent a new, original process that you'd come up with for building fans. I haven't read the article, so I'm not sure what their patent is about. Disclaimer, IANAL.
The sad thing is . . . (Score:2)
Taco, just rewrite your idea starting with "The method of . .
If you think I'm kidding, you are sadly mistaken.
---
Its really simple. (Score:2)
If you build a mousetrap you can patent it. Nobody else can DUPLICATE your mousetrap and sell it while the patent is active. However, it does not prevent anyone else from creating their own mousetraps or even improving on your model. You can't patent the concept of a mousetrap, only the exact mousetrap.
You can't patent an icon, although I could imagine granting a patent for a specific icon design. Mac icons are typically different than windows icons. If its THAT damned important, then fine. Patent the damn thing. But I can still create my own icons. They can still serve the same function. You can't deny me that.
A specific algorithm? I suppose. All algorithms that produce a specific effect? Nope.
Of course, this probably isn't the way it is, and its not even the way I'd like it to be. But it does to some degree make sense.
Then again, I'm in the process of installing windows, so my mental condition at the moment is questionable, so please disregard this comment.
-Restil
Patents? What defines a patent? (Score:2)
Let's say that I heard about the Venturi effect in a physics course. Can I go patent the Venturi (sucking/swirling) effect in motorcycle carburetors, and force Suzuki, Yamaha, Honda, Kawasaki, Harley-Davidson, and other motorcycle makers to pay me for royalties?
Tell me this isn't similar to using heat sinks with waves and cutouts so as to increase surface area and heat dissipation efficiency?
Goods and services (Score:2)
Do you see a pattern here? If you provide a good or a service, you want demand. Marketing creates demand.
Joe
Re:Hmm (Score:2)
Ok, you know that you're a geek when you can't type only 2 W's in a row. :)
_____________
Time for a meta-patent? (Score:2)
Admittedly, Rambus has clear prior art, but that hasn't mattered a tinker's dam since the PO reforms...
Re:Predatation (Score:2)
All right, you have up to a year to keep things secret, which isn't too bad when it takes between a year to two years for the US patent office to grant a patent. I'm using the typical time period that the company I am working for gets its patents granted - probably could be a bit faster if you've got people who know how to work the system really well. Chances are, it isn't exposed at all before you can get the patent.
Not that it really matters, since you can word things so that it doesn't show up on a prior art search looking for particular keywords, or is buried in the middle of so many other similar crap patents with such obtuse language that somebody could see the claims 3 times without twigging to the fact that they've got a match.
Please show me a US pending patent - oh that's right, you can't. Silly me. Kind of hard to do any prior art searches on those, isn't it? Wasn't I just talking about that?
Patents are _supposed_ to encourage real, society-benefiting innovation by giving people the chance to make some money off them w/o worrying about people horning in on their action. And when the monopoly period runs out, the entire society can benefit from the innovation.
The current system seems to define innovation as minor semantic differences from existing patent descriptions, and encourages large entities to use large portfolios of these barely-differentiated "innovations" to stifle small competitors or to defend themselves from other similarly-minded large entities. They can also tie up good ideas far longer than the already-too-long 17 years (or was it 20 now?) by extending the patent with a small variation. This situation does NOT seem to be in the general society's best interests.
The granting of a patent should only be TRULY innovative, not just based on some minor semantical differences, and it should be fairly RARE. Trying to reserve every possible combination of ideas for implementing some basic concept for private individuals is not good for the public.
I wish people would remember that the end goal of patents (and intellectual property in general) is to provide long-term benefits for the society. The _short-term_ benefit is for an individual, but only because it's supposed to encourage people to think up ideas which can be used for the society. If you've got a system which _prevents_ the society as a whole (not just some of the society) from ever effectively using those ideas - well, that system needs fixing.
As an aside, I also have some issues about corporate entities, which are merely legal definitions, owning something like "intellectual" property (and being able to deny it to the individuals whose brains actually generated those ideas). But that's a whole other can of worms.
Re:Predatation (Score:2)
Re:Predatation (Score:2)
1. Patents pending are secret. You could build an entire company based on a few ideas, only to find out when someone else's patent is granted that you have to pay them royalties which you didn't take into account before.
2. There are WAY too many patents, and not terribly well categorized & indexed, for all but the largest patent-searching organizations to be absolutely sure they've covered all the possibilities (which costs money). In other words, even if there IS a patent which you're violating, there's a good chance you'll never find it in the noise - but if you're successful, you can bet that the patent holder is going to be giving you a call.
Also falling into this category, are patents which have been made so broad, that any search based on the SPECIFIC details of an implementation are going to completely miss those claims in that patent - but the patentholder probably isn't going to miss you.
3. Prior art doesn't need to be patented - and thus will not show up until somebody needs to put the kibosh on your patent.
As a patent searcher, you should be aware of all this - it's your job to make sure there are no OBVIOUS competing patents, but I doubt you'd guarantee your boss your paycheck for the next year that you haven't missed something.
Re:Predatation (Score:2)
At least some companies get their US patents FIRST, then use those patents (and the "art" associated with the patents) as leverage to get patents in other countries (assisted by the international treaties which have been signed to allow the "prior art" in one country's patent system to invalidate a patent filed in another country's). Therefore, the pending patent is secret until granted.
No, it's a fault with the patent system. It's become pretty much inaccessible except to those people who specialize in searching it, and even then you have people who specialize in searching for particular kinds of patents.
While you can argue that this kind of complexity creates new jobs (like yours, for instance), my feeling is that those kinds of jobs represent the inefficiency of the system.
That's a few thousand PER search (and I assume you usually don't batch search for hundreds of potential patents at a time). While this is peanuts for medium to large size corporations, it adds up pretty fast for individuals & small businesses, representing a bigger chunk of their "survival" funds than for the larger organizations. Kind of like a "regressive tax" on innovation.
Last I heard, small businesses were still more important to the economic engine than even most of the largest companies. From a societal viewpoint, it seems to make more sense to make things more efficient for the small businesses rather than the larger organizations. (I am aware that most of the corporate lobbyists are not being paid to share my views.)
I extended my thoughts slightly to the general difficulties of ensuring a good result for prior art searching. And while I congratulate you on your thoroughness for searching both patent & non-patent art, it has been made abundantly clear that many organizations applying for patents only do enough searching (usually in the patent database itself) to ensure that the Patent Office will give them the patent (i.e., implementation stated the exact same way has not already been patented), then use whatever legal resources are necessary to make the patent worth something (by intimidating others into paying license fees, or using the patent as a defense against predatory patent-abusers).
Software patents are the enemy, folks... (Score:2)
Hardware patents indeed provide a meaningful purpose still - and they promote innovation. They provide investors with a return on their money for developing new hardware and financing the setup of a manufacturing plant.
Software patents are our enemy. If we want people to listen to us, we have to at least be consistent. --
Twivel
This has to be the stupidest thing I've ever heard (Score:2)
> Sunonwealth Electric Machine Industry's suit stems from alleged patent violations of one of the company's competitors, which sells miniature fans that Creative and nVidia incorporate into graphics cards as GPU coolers.
Uh, why not go after the company that makes the infringing fans instead of the companies that use them? It makes no more sense for them to go after Creative and nVidia than it would for them to go after the consumers that use the cards with the offending fans.
wait.... huge investment? (Score:2)
Re:The best way (Score:2)
This is just stupid. Lawsuits like this are not generally the fault of the lawyers; they're the fault of the business guys. The lawyers don't just say, "Hey, let's sue somebody today." Their bosses decide to sue somebody as a business decision, and they send the lawyers to do the dirty work. If you make lawsuits into deathmatches between the lawyers, all you'll get are big, hulking, dumb lawyers who look like they belong in the WWF and are good at pulverizing people. If you really want to cut down on suits like this, make the CEOs duke it out when the companies get involved in a lawsuit. They're the ones who are making the decision to sue, after all, so you want them to suffer the consequences of frivolous lawsuits.
Not really. Most corporations have their legal people on staff, so they're going to collect their salary whether they're in a lawsuit or not. We're not talking about personal injury lawyers, here. When that isn't the case, the plaintif's attorney's often get a percentage of the settlement rather than an hourly fee, so they get the best return on their time if they get a fast settlement, rather than a drawn out case where they might wind up with nothing.
Re:Now hang on. (Score:2)
Not quite. nVidia and Creative aren't being sued for buying the fans, they're being sued for importing them. Reading between the lines a bit here, it sounds as though ADDA is probably making and selling the fans in a country that has very weak, if any, patent protection. If they don't directly do business somewhere that does have strong patent protection, Sunonwealth can't get results by suing them directly, because they won't be able to collect on any judgment that they win. The article makes it sound as though that's already happened, in fact. Instead they have to go after the companies that buy the fans and import them into countries that do have strong patent laws. This is like suing a company that imports illegal copies of DVDs; you can't sue the people doing the copying because the country where they're based will laugh at you, so you have to go after the importer.
Re:CPU fans do not use normal motors (Score:2)
However, it does have some similarities to rocket science. First of all, balance is all important. Second, inertia counts. Third, if it breaks while you're using it, the result could be catastrophic, causing other systems to fail.
--
ALL YOUR KARMA ARE BELONG TO US
making do without fans (Score:2)
Fans cool the latest 50 W processors from AMD and Intel. Fans cool overclocked beasts like the NVIDIA (TNT|GeForce) [12] Ultra.
The G4 Cube makes do without a fan. My K6-3+ can probably do without one, although the power supply is not immune.
Re:This has to be the stupidest thing I've ever he (Score:2)
Hmm (Score:2)
Unless of course we just televised the deathmatches...yeah, that's entertaining enough. And we'd always have the XFL to fall back on (heh)
Re:Hmm (Score:2)
The point being, of course, is to thin their numbers.
or maybe we could have truth in advertising by deciding all court cases in the WWWF.
It can't be any worse than it is now.
This might even have potential
Re:Predatation (Score:2)
Don't I know it. As I've alluded previously, there are for-pay databases which address exactly this issue. But I'd be much happier if they weren't necessary.
If you have a suggestion how that issue can be improved, I'd love to hear it.
Please show me a US pending patent - oh that's right, you can't. Silly me. Kind of hard to do any prior art searches on those, isn't it? Wasn't I just talking about that?
Yes, you were, and now we've come full circle in the discussion. In case you've forgotten, here's a summary:
I suppose this might be more of an issue with regards to software patents; since those are allowed only in the US, people don't apply for software patents anywhere else. In my field it's not a huge issue.
[Long rant about intended benefits of patents to society and what should be considered novel deleted.]
I must have misunderstood. From your earlier post [slashdot.org] I thought you were complaining about the way patents are enforced. Would it be more accurate to say that you are displeased with the way patents are applied for and granted (in which case I agree with you to some extent) and not with the way that patents (if they're good patents in the first place) are enforced?
Re:Predatation (Score:2)
Patents are public information. It's not as if the patenting company can keep it secret, only to announce the existence of a patent when they decide to file the lawsuit.
If the other companies are in fact infringing the patents in question, they should have known about it beforehand.
I know, because I do patent searching for a Fortune 500 company precisely to make sure there aren't competing patents on a technology before we begin development.
Re:The patents (Score:2)
When looking at a patent, you should always go immediately to the claims:
5,967,763
What is claimed is:
1. A positioning device for a miniature fan, comprising:
-
a coil seat including a plurality of annularly spaced poles, each pole having a radially extending stem and terminating with a circumferential arcuate section, each stem having a winding wound therearound, each arcuate section having a first end edge and a second end edge;
- a circuit board securely connected to the coil seat; and,
- a sensor element mounted on the circuit board, the sensor element being located on a vertical line extending from one of the first end edge and the second end edge of one of the poles so that the sensor element is aligned with the one of the first end edge and the second end edge.
2. The positioning device according to claim 1, wherein the pole having the first end edge thereof aligned with the sensor element has a first mark means formed thereon, and the sensor element has a second mark means formed thereon which is aligned with the first mark means when mounting the sensor element onto the circuit board to assure that the sensor element is located on the vertical line.3. The positioning device according to claim 2, wherein the circuit board includes a notch defined therein for securely receiving the sensor element.
4. The positioning device according to claim 3, wherein the circuit board includes a third mark means aligned with the second mark means to provide a reference for mounting the sensor element in the notch by aligning with the second mark means of the sensor element with the third mark means.
5. The positioning device according to claim 1, wherein the pole having second end edge thereof aligned with the sensor element has a first mark means formed thereon, and the sensor element has a second mark means formed thereon which is aligned with the first mark means when mounting the sensor element onto the circuit board to assure that the sensor element is located on the vertical line.
6. The positioning device according to claim 5, wherein the circuit board includes a notch defined therein for securely receiving the sensor element.
7. The positioning device according to claim 6, wherein the circuit board includes a third mark means aligned with the second mark means to provide a reference for mounting the sensor element in the notch by aligning with the second mark means of the sensor element with the third mark means.
6,109,892
What is claimed is:
1. A positioning device for a miniature fan, comprising:
-
a coil seat including an axle tube, an upper polar plate assembly, a lower polar plate assembly, a winding mounted between the upper polar plate assembly and the lower polar plate assembly, the lower plate assembly including a front end edge and a rear end edge; and
- a circuit board mounted to the axle tube and including a sensor element adapted to activate a rotor, the sensor element located on a vertical line extending from one of said end edges of the lower polar plate assembly along a direction parallel to a longitudinal axis of the axle tube.
2. The positioning device according to claim 1, wherein the circuit board includes a notch defined therein for receiving the sensor element.3. The positioning device according to claim 1, wherein the coil seat has a first mark formed thereon, and the sensor element has a second mark formed thereon which is aligned with the first mark so as to assure that the sensor element is located on the vertical line.
4. The positioning device according to claim 3, wherein the circuit board includes a third mark to be aligned with the first mark and the second mark to assure that the sensor element is located on the vertical line.
6,114,785
What is claimed is:
1. A positioning device for a miniature fan, comprising;
-
a coil seat including an axle tube, an upper polar plate assembly, a lower polar plate assembly, and a winding mounted between the upper polar plate assembly and the lower polar plate assembly, the upper polar plate assembly including an end edge,
- a circuit board mounted to the axle tube and including a sensor element adapted to activate a rotor, and
- structural elements situated on a vertical line extending from the end edge of the upper polar plate in a direction parallel to a longitudinal axis of the axle tube,
- wherein said structural elements include said end edge of the upper polar plate assembly and said sensor element, and
- wherein said end edge of the upper polar plate and said sensor element are thereby aligned with each other by being located on said vertical line extending from the end edge of the upper polar plate assembly along a direction parallel to a longitudinal axis of the axle tube.
2. The positioning device according to claim 1, further comprising a first mark formed on the coil seat and a second mark formed on the sensor element, said second mark being aligned with the first mark so as to assure that the sensor element is located on the line.3. The positioning device according to claim 1, wherein the lower polar plate assembly includes a notch defined therein in which the sensor element is received.
4. The positioning device according to claim 1, wherein the circuit board includes a notch defined therein for receiving the sensor element.
5. The positioning device according to claim 2, wherein the circuit board includes a third mark to be aligned with the first mark and the second mark to assure that the sensor element is located on the line.
Also keep in mind that each individual numbered claim is like a mini-patent in its own right; however, within each numbered claim, all listed elements must be present for infringement to occur.
Re:Now hang on. (Score:2)
Because they're also selling the fans. If you sell a patented technology without the patent holder's permission, whining "but I didn't make it" won't get you off the hook.
Can the people who *use* cards with allegedly infringing fans also be sued?
Yes, in the sense that anyone can be sued any time for anything.
Is it likely? Probably not. Maybe if you're generating a profit from them in one way or another.
Re:Patent office employees (Score:2)
Sheesh, can no one spend 5 seconds trying to actually find things out? There's a job opportunities [uspto.gov] page on the USPTO website. As an example, here are the requirements for a position listed as "Patent Examiner (Electrical Engineering/Computer Science Specialist/Computer Engineering)":
Don't blame me for karma whoring--if alen had taken 5 seconds to find this out for himself this post wouldn't be necessary.
Re:Predatation (Score:2)
Only in the US, and anything big is not going to be patented only in the US. You don't think I search only for US patents, do you?
2. There are WAY too many patents, and not terribly well categorized & indexed, for all but the largest patent-searching organizations to be absolutely sure they've covered all the possibilities (which costs money). In other words, even if there IS a patent which you're violating, there's a good chance you'll never find it in the noise - but if you're successful, you can bet that the patent holder is going to be giving you a call.
And what do you propose to do about this? How is this the fault of the company with the original patent?
Further, a prior art search costs a few thousand dollars, in the patent searcher's time and in the cost of searching for-pay, proprietary databases (which alleviate a lot of the indexing problems you cite with the free databases). Nothing to sneeze at, to be sure, but hardly something available only to "the largest patent-searching organizations," as you claim. Before you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on developing a new technology, doesn't it make sense to spend a few thousand to make sure no one else has patented it already?
3. Prior art doesn't need to be patented - and thus will not show up until somebody needs to put the kibosh on your patent.
I thought we were discussing the alleged "predatory practices" of corporations with patents, not the difficulty of enforcing your own patents, so this is not germane to the issue. In any case, non-patent prior art will show up, as a competent prior art search (such as I would do) covers both patent and non-patent art.
Re:Predatation (Score:2)
My company is not in the computer tech field. In the interest of privacy and partial anonymity, I do not care to say what field they are in.
The point is, when patents are overly broad no amount of research is going to discover whether or not something infringes until it gets through the court system.
I don't deny that many patents being issued in the computer/software field seem to be overly broad (but since that's not my area of expertise, I can't say for sure). The point of the original poster seemed to be that companies somehow keep their patents secret until they decide they want to enforce them, and it was that point, and only that point, to which I was responding.
Re:Predatation (Score:2)
Simply untrue. Once you file a patent application in one country, you have a one-year grace period to file in any other country--after that your first patent application counts as prior art in the other countries you would seek to get a patent in!
(assisted by the international treaties which have been signed to allow the "prior art" in one country's patent system to invalidate a patent filed in another country's).
The international treaties may have standardized this practice among all developed countries, but in most countries this was the case even before the treaties: just as both patents and non-patent literature constitute prior art, documents published both in the country in which the patent is applied for and outside constitute prior art.
Are you seriously arguing against this practice? Are you seriously suggesting that if someone in France has invented something but patented it only in France, that I should be allowed to patent it in the US?
Therefore, the pending patent is secret until granted.
Oh please. Here [delphion.com] is one it took me about 15 seconds to find. There's thousands of published pending patent applications.
it has been made abundantly clear that many organizations applying for patents only do enough searching (usually in the patent database itself) to ensure that the Patent Office will give them the patent (i.e., implementation stated the exact same way has not already been patented),
I certainly don't deny that the USPTO often does a sloppy job of examining patent applications
then use whatever legal resources are necessary to make the patent worth something (by intimidating others into paying license fees, or using the patent as a defense against predatory patent-abusers).
Excuse me, but I thought that's what patents were for? I'm afraid I'm not clear on your position--are you saying all patents by definition are a bad thing, or are you arguing against the way some companies enforce their patents? If the latter, how are they supposed to do it other than "'intimidating' others into paying license fees or using the patent as a defense against predatory patent abusers?" If you are not against patents in general, what would you suggest would be the appropriate way for companies to enforce valid patents?
Re:Of Toilets and Engineering... (Score:2)
but with less than 1/5 the waste water, and probably 1/100 the water that was used by the Romans.
Yeah, but I bet the Romans didn't get skid marks...
Re:Patents? What defines a patent? (Score:2)
Unfortunately the process pits domain experts and highly paid lawyers against underpaid patent examiners with an impossible mandate.
So would somebody please suggest a workable alternative, perhaps akin to peer review?
Not everyone at once, now...
Re:Lets not go overboard... (Score:2)
Some specialty cooling shops carry most/all of their lightweight plastic line, and you can probably find a bunch of the heavy duty aluminum ones at surplus stores like Ax-Man [ax-man.com] in the Twin Cities area. Ooh, I love that place.
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Yes. And this time it is right and proper. (Score:3)
I understand the luddite primal instincts of some slashdot users but they are not right in this case. Designing a silent and highly efficient fan requires some serious aerodinamics, sound propagation and thermal conduction research. It is IMHO harder than designing a memory bus (no fionger pointing at favourite targerts). And "one click" bogousities should not even be compared to the case.
So IMHO a patent on a good fan design has merit.
If you still do not believe me take a golden orb and compare it some cheepo piece of junk. Just look at the blade shapes...
Now hang on. (Score:3)
This is nVidia who are having their arses kicked. What they've done is pulled a fan apart, copied it, and made their own to save, what, US$0.10 per unit on graphics cards that are US$200 - 300 - upwards? And don't forget these things are a shedload more expensive outside the US.
Tightarses, honestly. Fuck'em. Sue their sorry backsides off.
Dave
Re:I patent... the stone hammer! (Score:3)
Not all fans are that good. My last (and I do mean -last-) purchase of a pre-made PC included PSU and CPU fans which each died within two months of use.
I have no doubt that a 7-year-old is capable of designing and building a fan which does in fact work. I have a great deal of doubt that such an apparatus would continue to work 14 years later.
There are at least a few things about metallurgy, magnetics, lubrication and airflow which are neither obvious nor easy to understand, but are certainly required for engineering an efficient, well-designed, and long-lasting fan.
Those who believe anything different are those who are entirely responsible for the fact that most fans sold as computer parts today are complete shit.
Well I can't say... (Score:3)
Re:Now hang on. (Score:3)
I really don't understand how it is that nVidia and Creative can be held liable - the court has not yet found in the plaintiff's favor, so the two companies buying the allegedly infringing fans aren't breaking any laws. Using bad judgement maybe, but that's all. Can the people who *use* cards with allegedly infringing fans also be sued? I don't see how nVidia is sue-able any more than I am for having a card that uses the fan.
The patents (Score:3)
I'm don't really understand what their patent covers, but my best guess is the idea of making notches on a circuit board with which to align and mount a small fan and associated sensor (and I'm not sure what the sensor does, except that it can turn the fan on). It would be interesting to have a company representative translate their patent claims into language a layperson could understand.
5,967,763 [164.195.100.11] Positioning devices for a sensor element of a miniature fan
A positioning device for a miniature fan includes a coil seat including a number of annularly spaced poles each having a radially extending stem and a circumferential arcuate section. Each stem has a winding wound therearound, and each arcuate section has a first end edge and a second end edge. A circuit board is securely connected to the coil seat and includes a sensor element mounted thereon. The sensor element is located on a vertical line extending from one of the first end edge and the second end edge of one of the poles.
6,109,892 [164.195.100.11] Positioning device for a sensor element of a miniature fan
A positioning device for a miniature fan includes a coil seat having an axle tube, an upper polar plate assembly, a lower polar plate assembly, and a winding mounted between the upper polar plate assembly and the lower polar plate assembly. A circuit board is mounted to the axle tube and includes a sensor element for activating a rotor. The sensor element is located on a vertical line extending from an end edge of the lower polar plate assembly along a direction parallel to a longitudinal axis of the axle tube.
6,114,785 [164.195.100.11] Positioning device for a sensor element of a miniature fan
A positioning device for a miniature fan includes a coil seat having an axle tube, an upper polar plate assembly, a lower polar plate assembly, and a winding mounted between the upper polar plate assembly and the lower polar plate assembly. A circuit board is mounted to the axle tube and includes a sensor element for activating rotor. The sensor element is located on a line extending from an end edge of the upper polar plate assembly along a direction parallel to a longitudinal axis of the axle tube.
Re:This has to be the stupidest thing I've ever he (Score:3)
35 USC section 271 [cornell.edu](a):
(emphasis added)
Yes, if this patent holds up in court, Sunonwealth could theoretically sue you for using one of the cards with one of the fans in question! It's just not usually practical to sue the end users.
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Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delenda est Windoze
CPU fans do not use normal motors (Score:3)
So instead they use a very high speed stepper motor and a circuit board to drive it.
That's why they cose $9 and not 90 cents.
Saying a CPU fan is a trivial device is not accurate.
Re:I patent... the stone hammer! (Score:3)
Fan tech (Score:3)
Now consider that out of all the fan manufacturers, Sunon is well-known as a one of the best, supplying not only normal fans, but also ultra-high-output and/or super-quiet varieties.
Scoff scoff, just a fan.
And CmdrTaco is "just a programmer."
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Predatation (Score:3)
Some people would disagree.
Either way, the real issue is the predatory practice. I patent something, wait until everybody else uses or develops the same technology and then I slap them with an infringement lawsuit.
This is pretty much blackmail, because it's not like the defendants can change the technology. They invested an awful lot of money in a technology they can't use anymore and they'll have to pay through the nose in 'royalties' to the so-called innovator.
This may not be the case here, but there are way too many examples. Rambus allowed SDRAM to become a memory standard and then decided it had a patent on it. AltaVista has just discovered it owns the very concept of a search engine. BT has decided after decades that it invented hyperlinks and is entitled to compensation from everybody. Gaming the system has gotten out of hand. Anytime some company sues the entire industry there's something suspicious up.
rsg (Score:4)
I know it's been mentioned before, but there's something better-- it covers far more than just patent lawsuits. That's right, folks, the slashdot story generator [bbspot.com].
Re:Why the hostility Cmdr Taco? (Score:4)
Lets not go overboard... (Score:5)
-Moondog
Why the hostility Cmdr Taco? (Score:5)
- US5967763: Positioning devices for a sensor element of a miniature fan [delphion.com]
- US6109892: Positioning device for a sensor element of a miniature fan [delphion.com]
- US6114785: Positioning device for a sensor element of a miniature fan [delphion.com]
Now it looks like they patented various iterations of a sensor element attached to a fan. To me it seems frivolous on the surface, but since I'm not into PC components I'm not a 100% sure since evrything seems obvious in hind sight.What if they DESERVE the patent??? (Score:5)
Come on people, at least find out what the patent is about before damning a company to the lowest depths of hell for defending it.
Re:I patent... the stone hammer! (Score:5)