Five PC Vendors Face Patent Lawsuit 337
Combuchan writes "This article from internetnews.com caught my attention: While Linux lawsuits gobble up the IT community's mindshare, a lesser-known legal action is being fought seeking billions of dollars from five PC vendors. Patriot Scientific, a small, San Diego-based seller of embedded microprocessors for automotive and scientific applications, is suing Sony, Fujitu, Matsushita, Toshiba, and NEC, alleging infringement of a Patriot patent for what it calls 'fundamental microprocessor technology.'"
Well that's one way... (Score:2, Insightful)
Im in the wrong business (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Im in the wrong business (Score:4, Insightful)
"First, kill all the lawyers."
Kierthos
Re:Im in the wrong business (Score:5, Funny)
smart. who's going to defend you on that murder rap then?
Re:Im in the wrong business (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Im in the wrong business (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Im in the wrong business (Score:2, Funny)
At least they won't ship *that* job ofshore too quickly.
SCO's motto (Score:5, Insightful)
It is "if you can't beat them, sue them.
Thats not a joke (Score:2)
"Our main focus is the IP [intellectual property] business now," he said.
WTF? Gee instead of actually providing something and furthering the choice of consumers we sue them...
Frankly if the US continues down this path they will only hurts themselves. As when a patent suit is launched US consumers are the ones that pay. I wonder if India and China have these problems....
Maybe things like this will help patents change? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just a thought. Of course, laws would probably change in a way that makes it harder for anobody to sue big companies, but leave it just as easy for big companies to patent "one click instead of two to buy an item" type idiocy, but we can hope, can't we?
Re:I doubt it (Score:5, Informative)
To these companies, owning lots of patents on lots of sometimes crazy things is a way of protecting their turf and a good way of putting potential competitors out of business. If they try to tighten up U.S. patent law, they'll only be making their job harder. Besides, I imagine that the amount of money they lose off most these lawsuits is chicken-scratch compared to their coffers.
Re:I doubt it (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't assume anything. Companys like IBM file "defensive" patents all the time just to keep from being sued by little guys.
About 75% of the patent nightmares we've seen lately are from the tech bubble where high end companys go down the toilet. The decades of defensive patents become the best hope for survival and a new wave of patent lawsutes washes over the landscape.
I'm sure the surviving tech giants are sick and tired of not only having to file new patents but also for being sued by former giants who couldn't survive.
Re:I doubt it (Score:3, Interesting)
Companies knowing that there is IP infringement taking place and n
aggghhh it's "lose", get it "lose" (Score:4, Funny)
not loose, lose
looser
The patent office doesn't follow the law (Score:3, Informative)
Sticking two existing things together and calling it something new has a long history. The guy who first stuck an erasor on the end of a pencil (named Hymen Lipman -- I'm not making this up!) got a U.S. patent on it! It was later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court [findlaw.com] because a pencil manufacturer decided to fight it.
Re:Maybe things like this will help patents change (Score:5, Insightful)
big companies like it this way (Score:5, Insightful)
Small lawsuit-only shops still a thorn (Score:3, Interesting)
Why do you say that? (Score:2)
And anyway, why would big companies care? They have the legal resources to fight off bogus patent cases (just like the patent office intends), and the benifit probably outweighs the cost.
That said, if patent law were changed, say to charge far more money and do more research it would be a huge benifit to large companies who could afford the filing fee. If patent law were scrapped totaly, it would be a big beni
Patriot? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Patriot? (Score:2)
oh for fucks sake (Score:5, Informative)
San Diego, CA - August 7, 2003 - - Patriot Scientific Corporation (OTCBB:PTSC) developer of key microprocessor technologies and scalable Java solutions for mobile products, today announced that it has received an additional patent for fundamental microprocessor technology currently in widespread use. United States Patent #6,598,148 B1 has been granted for PTSC's variable speed clock acceleration technology for RISC and CISC processors. The patented technology not only bolsters PTSC's licensable microprocessor IP portfolio, but further strengthens the company's patent rights.
Future patent grants are expected that will further expand PTSC's rights within these fundamental technologies.
Jim Turley, editor of Silicon-Insider and previous editor of Microprocessor Report and a member of the company's Scientific Advisory Board, said, "After analyzing PTSC's patent, I'm certainly impressed with its range of coverage, basically representing the dominant means of accelerating internal microprocessor clock speeds."
Jeff Wallin, president and CEO of PTSC stated, "This is an important patent grant as it further validates our early innovation of key processing technologies that are ensconced in our IP portfolio. It not only gives our customers an extra measure of certainty in terms of our virginity and the technology but it substantially strengthens the validity and scope of our patent enforcement efforts."
Because of the breadth of the company's patent portfolio coupled with the size of the market benefiting from the company's protected technologies, the company is pursuing an intellectual property compliance program targeted at hundreds of companies using microprocessors with internal capabilities greater than 120 KHz. This is estimated to be in excess of a $200 billion market. Beatie and Osborn LLP, one of America's most prestigious law firms, represents the company's licensing and enforcement objectives.
Patriots hey? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:oh for fucks sake (Score:4, Insightful)
This is starting to get ridiculous. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: This is starting to get ridiculous. (Score:5, Funny)
> Does any company actually have a business plan that isn't based around suing people any more?
Yes - law firms.
Pay Attention (Score:4, Insightful)
Pay attention to who they are suing. Japanese companies are famous for folding at the least sign of litigation (remember Rambus, anyone?) thus a likely first target to raise capital to start suing others. It would be rather nice if the Japanese sent some Yakuza over to negotiate.
Prior art? (Score:4, Interesting)
Pentium chips have been around since the mid-90's.
Doesn't this make for a ridiculously clear case of prior art?
Re:Prior art? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Prior art? (Score:3, Informative)
Who invented the Pentium? (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know when the first Pentium came out with an on-chip clock, but that's probably not important anyway. I doubt if the patent is on the idea of an on-chip clock -- they can hardly claim to be the first people to have invented the concept of component integration! More likely they're claiming to have invented a design or manufacturing technique... oh well, might as well go look it up.
Yup, here's the 1995 patent application [uspto.gov]. It's too complicated for me, but they seem be claiming that their design manages to produce a steady clock signal even as temperature fluctuations play holy hell with the oscillations that produce the clock signal. Assuming I haven't totally mangled the concept, and that they really did think of this first, that's a pretty significant invention. It's certainly not on the same level as these business-process and software patents that we all love to hate.
Avoiding the big fish? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Avoiding the big fish? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Avoiding the big fish? (Score:5, Insightful)
Here are some examples.
http://www.fme.fujitsu.com/products/micro/32bit
http://www.toshiba-electronics.com.hk/eng/syste
http://siliconvalley.internet.com
http://www.necelam.com/microprocessors/
Beyond these guys, there are even more companies that have similar products. Hitachi's Super-H line comes to mind.
Re:Avoiding the big fish? (Score:4, Interesting)
Saying that Intel is an 800 pound gorilla is an understatement.
They don't want to fight Intel because they know that Intel's breadth of microproccessor technology is staggering. Probably enough to break the patent, if not rub out the company with legal entanglements.
This would be a good company for Intel to make an example of.
Patent info (Score:5, Insightful)
Here [uspto.gov] is the official patent from the USPTO. It was originally filed in 1998, but IC's have been around much longer than that, so I'm sure there's some prior art somewhere. This next quote could almost have come from the depths of the SCO complex:
Kinda sounds like Rambus [rambus.com] and look where they've gone.
Amigori
Re:Patent info (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Patent info (Score:3, Informative)
This should be non-news by, say, tuesday.
IANAL. IAAP.
Re:Patent info (Score:4, Insightful)
Obviously the Selden patentholders lost, as we have Ford Exploders and Ford Festivas in abundance today, but no Selden engines.
Assholes. (Score:3, Insightful)
"Our main focus is the IP [intellectual property] business now," he said.
They don't actually make anything. They are a perfect example of why patents should be abolished - consumers and manufacturers all loose because of higher prices that support legalized protection rackets run by these thugs.
Sound Familiar? (Score:5, Funny)
Although Patriot has plans to move forward with its 32-bit processors and application-specific integrated circuits, Wallin said that product revenues were currently "negligible."
"Our main focus is the IP [intellectual property] business now," he said.
Gee, this really reminds me of someone... can't think of the name...
Re:Sound Familiar? (Score:5, Insightful)
Recipe for legal victory (Score:5, Funny)
Deja SCO (Score:2)
Re:Deja SCO (Score:2)
This is nuts. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This is nuts. (Score:2, Redundant)
I think what this calls for is some way to pierce the shield of a company so that executives become criminally responsible personally for schemes this far out of bounds. Reckless use of the courts as a business plan should not be t
Re:This is nuts. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is nuts. (Score:2)
What diffrence would it make? The companies could counter-sue, and you'd go bankrupt trying to defend yourself.
Re:This is nuts. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it should go like this:
If you get sued by someone with a patent, and the patent is found to be invalid. The Patent Office should have to pay your legal fees, as well as other punitive damages.
The Patent Office currently makes a lot of money granting patents, and it doesn't cost them at all if they grant stupid patents. They should be forced to pay financially for granting invalid patents.
Re:This is nuts. (Score:5, Insightful)
Where do I sign up to vote for this? I'm gonna make sure that everyone in all the local cemetaries is also registered and votes for it.
Seriously, this, if it weren't for the USTPO being paid for by taxpayer dollars in the first place, and therefore any punitive action against them translates directly to a punitive action against the public at large, while they are still insulated from the results of their usually brainless actions. This has got to stop, and do so without allowing politics into the picture.
So the first step is to privatize the USTPO, making someone at the top responsible for the agencies continued financial viability, maybe even with jail time for a proven in the courts failure. If damages were against them for granting a bogus patent, you can bet your ass that efficient means of searching for prior art would be just a perl script away from reality.
As it exists today, it appears that the USTPO has no real incentive to "waste time on all that folderol".
So yes, I'm in favor of a large, smoking, hole in the ground where the present agency resides, but we also have a very very real need for something that actually works.
We'd have to pay the top person well enough to make the job appealing even while holding that person punitively responsible for failures. That would go a long ways toward assuring that a granted patent in indeed a patentable idea, unclouded by any possible tainting by prior art.
Fees for fileing a patent would of course have to go up, way up to the point that the only way I could afford to file one is if I sold 90% of myself to somebody in the VC business. As thats often the case today anyway, I don't see that as all that huge an impediment if the idea itself is a valid, patentable idea. That would make the VC people do some real investigations themselves, which cannot help but be a Good Thing(tm).
There would of course have to be severe criminal penalties, including hard time in the federal ass pound for VC's who betrayed that trust by attempting to steal the idea after the inventor has revealed enough to them to generate their interest and help. The inventor deserves to be protected from such pond scum.
Re:This is nuts. (Score:3, Informative)
A better idea (Score:2)
I think making the USPTO pay for at least part of the costs would be a better idea.
Because then it wold be in their interest not to grant bogous patents.
Stupid idiots at USPTO (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Stupid idiots at USPTO (Score:2)
Re:Stupid idiots at USPTO (Score:4, Informative)
Note that the obvious requirement (as interpretted by the courts) has nothing to do with whether one thinks that the invention would have been obvious, but rather whether the prior art of record shows that it would have been obvious.
Re:Stupid idiots at USPTO (Score:2)
The problem is, any idiot trained in the arts of microprocessor design could make a lot more money practicing their arts then working at the Patent Office. Although, maybe with Indian outsourcing things will change in a couple years...
As Per Usual.. (Score:5, Informative)
6,598,148 [uspto.gov] High performance microprocessor having variable speed system clock
5,809,336 [uspto.gov] High performance microprocessor having variable speed system clock
5,784,584 [uspto.gov] High performance microprocessor using instructions that operate within instruction groups
5,659,703 [uspto.gov] Microprocessor system with hierarchical stack and method of operation
All of these patents appear to be divisional patents of another patent:
5,440,749 [uspto.gov] High performance, low cost microprocessor architecture
which was filed in August of 1989 (for the most part, this date should be taken to be the effective priority date of all the above applications) and assigned to Nanotronics Corporation.
Please remember that titles, abstracts, and descriptions from the patent mean nothing legally. The only section which has any legal weight is the claims, so please don't start complaining about old microprocessors as "prior art" unless they actually do the same thing as is stated in the claims.
Re:Does it have to fulfill all? (Score:5, Informative)
It is also important to note that dependent claims (for example, a claim that starts like "The apparatus of claim 1") contain every limitation of the claims that they depend on.
Techincally, for something to be prior art, the only requirement is that it have existed prior to the filing of the application. For something to be considered good prior art, then it will have to read on the claims in some way.
Good prior art can read on all, or some of the features of a single claim depending on which statute it is being used under. For prior art under 35 USC 102, the prior art must have (at least) every feature of the claims. For prior art under 35 USC 103 a single prior art reference does not have to have every feature of the claims, however it must be combined with additional references which have the missing features and give motivation to add the missing features into the first reference to acheive the system (method, apparatus, etc..) of a single claim.
Good Grief (Score:2)
I predict Intel will meet with grand success in their case.
Re:Good Grief (Score:2)
They basically patented an improvement upon the microprocessor, whereby the clock speed is variable, the pin count is low, and the processor has on-board DRAM controls.
None of these things are new as of 1998, when the app was filed, an
"Five PC Vendors" (Score:3, Funny)
Week-old article from the San Diego Union Tribune (Score:5, Informative)
Patriot's provocative plan [signonsandiego.com]
Re:Week-old article from the San Diego Union Tribu (Score:2)
PROFIT! (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Do X
2. ????
3. Profit.
The missing variable has been right in front of our eyes all along. It's sue everybody.
Japanese Companies Only? (Score:2, Insightful)
Coincidence?
chill, people (Score:5, Insightful)
Seller wins lawsuit against vendors for microprocessor infringement. News.
Let me know how it turns out.
Re:chill, people (Score:4, Insightful)
Would you rather hear that a family member has been diagnosed with cancer or not find out until they die from it?
This lawsuit is news and I'd rather know about it now when there is still a chance to express my opinion whether it matters or not.
It's Moore's old Forth machine (Score:4, Interesting)
Claim 1 does have some breadth. Arguably, though, this only covers systems with on-chip main memory (not cache) using more than half the real estate, some cache, and a variable-speed clock. Some microcontrollers fit those criteria, but they're not the most common ones. Bigger CPUs have off-chip memory, and low-end microcontrollers often have no cache system at all.
Congress needs to offer indemification (Score:4, Insightful)
Second, patents need to be tightened. Just because you come up with the idea of having a clock on the chip does not mean that someone else cannot come up with the a simular idea, but implemented in a different way, and make money.
You know, I have tempted to apply for a patent where URL's are spoofed using the latest Microsoft exploit for IE where the %01 is used to hide the real location of a web address. Then I'll sue Microsoft for violating my idea that I "came up with" in high school or something.
It's pre-existing (Score:3, Informative)
any single chip static microcontroller that incorporates a substantial amount of RAM on chip, has bufferred memory access, and can run at multiple clock speeds fits the description in this claim. I think some versions of Mitsubishi M16 Hitachi H8 had enough RAM to cover more than half the chip and existed as early as 1996. This patent probably is bogus.
Claim 1:
1. A microprocessor integrated circuit comprising:
a program-controlled processing unit operative in accordance with a sequence of program instructions;
a memory coupled to said processing unit and capable of storing information provided by said processing unit;
a plurality of column latches coupled to the processing unit and the memory, wherein, during a read operation, a row of bits are read from the memory and stored in the column latch; and
a variable speed system clock having an output coupled to said processing unit;
said processing unit, said variable speed system clock, said plurality of column latches, and said memory fabricated on a single substrate, said memory using a greater area of said single substrate than said processing unit, said memory further using a majority of a total area of said single substrate.
Re:It's pre-existing (Score:3, Informative)
One quote that says it all. (Score:3, Informative)
That explains it all. Translation: All we do is sue people.
Invention is legitimate, but claims seem inflated (Score:5, Interesting)
Patent No. 6,598,148 [uspto.gov],
appears to be a divisional patent from patent No. 5,982,231, filed in 1989. In summary, the invention describes a CPU using both stack and register-based instructions which interfaces directly to DRAM memory over 32 shared address and data lines. Memory accesses are minimized by using mainly stack-based instructions and accessing memory in fast page mode. The invention is designed to minimize cost, fitting just tens of thousands of transistors into a 44-pin package, while delivering approximately 20 MIPS performance. While none of the design elements by themselves are new or unique, the particular combination chosen seems to fit the definition of a real invention that was not in existence before 1989.
The features which seem to relate to its claims of variable speed are the use of an on-board ring oscillator to drive the system clock, and memory cycle timing which automatically adjusts to the loading seen from attached memory devices. Using an on-board ring oscillator means that the system clock can be driven by a device built with process parameters identical to other devices on the chip. If CPU transistors are a little slow on a batch of chips, the ring oscillator transistors will be similarly slow and the chips will continue to work at a slower but reliable speed.
It's just not clear to me how Patriot Scientific can claim that companies like Intel are infringing on their patent. Is it because Intel's products contain technology which also happens to appear in their invention, but which they themselves did not invent? None of the individual technologies used in the Patriot device originated with them, and it appears that only the specific combination of those technologies described in the patent application would have qualified it for approval. However, the patent claims are written in such a way as to seemingly describe a much broader range of CPU designs, many examples of which were certainly in existence before even the original patent application by Patriot was filed.
I've seen it stated that the claims are the only important part of a patent. That seems to be the big problem with this particular patent. What happens when a legitimate invention is granted a patent with overly broad claims? Some patents are written with claims that include a range of claims, some very specific and some very broad, on the assumption that it's better to aim for as much as possible and settle for what you can get. This particular patent seems to have only broad claims. Does that make it easier or harder to try and overturn?
Cross-licensing doesn't work anymore! (Score:3, Insightful)
Until now, the major corporations used patents mainly to keep the small guy out of the market, and by cross-licensing ensured that they didn't have to fear anything from each other. Here we have a firm that, by its own admission, lives by litigation. So offering them a cross-licensing deal doesn't work. A firm that holds just ONE key patent, but doesn't need that patent (and patents held by others) for its products, is immune to the cross-licensing snare, and can cause a whole lot of trouble for the big guys.
I think that if a few more companies get into the litigation business this way, the molochs will start using their influence to get the patenting system overturned. Of course, the fact that Patriot is sueing Japanese firms and not American ones, may be an indication that they are afraid of exactly that. But I have no worries that IBM, Intel and their peers won't catch on.
Support FFII (Score:3, Interesting)
Economists are very critical about the patent system at large, but I believe the quality of patents has to improved, the quantitiy has to be reduced. A way to do so it to set high standards,
But in the WIPO the lawyer community drafts extension to patentability. Patent law is not evil per se, but in dynamic industries it does not suit. Patents were never designed for services. In Europe FFII [ffii.org] and many other organisations were able to build a mature counter-force to the lawyer's lobby groups. However they are in the international and governmental institutions as experts and design their own patent law.
How to get rid of bad patents? can therefore be translated to "How to create balance in patent legislation?". It makes little sense to hunt down trivial patents. The bugs are in the patent system and have to be fixed. Patent attorneys are not intrested in a working patent system.
What to do?
1. Get organized. there are several US organisation, but there is not real US movement.
There is a very low-traffic US mailing list of FFII, JOIN [ffii.org].
2. Support petitions such as http://www.noepatents.org
3. Help to defend the European directive in Brussels (there will be a FFII conference in April [ffii.org])
4. Provide content and opinion articles about patent inflation on the internet.
Cross licensing (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not defending Patriot but I think the reason that you get litigation only companies going after big companies is created by the patent process.
A small company with a few influential patents would be silly to try and stay in the technology business once they entered a legal dispute with a bigger company. If I have 2 patents and I sue you, I'm going to be counter sued and there are going to be patents I haven't considered that will force me to close my business. Bigger portfolios of patents will shut down active companies. Before you sue a bigger portfolio you have to shut down your own company to protect against countersuits.
The system doesn't serve anyone but lawyers.
Easy to work around (Score:5, Interesting)
Typically only asynchronous CPUs are clocked by free-running ring oscillators. Almost all CPUs on the market, including embedded CPUs, are synchronous designs and they come in fixed speed grades, which makes PLL clocking very attractive.
Even with PLLs you can vary the clock speed, e.g. when you detect that the chip is too hot or when the work load is low the CPU clock can be scaled down in discrete steps.
A ring oscillator provides a non-discrete (continue) frequency range, but on the downside its clock frequency is very unstable compared to PLLs, which is bad for synchronous designs.
There is also prior art: the early MIPS processor implementations had a free running multiplier, which operated as fast as the silicon would allow, even though the rest of the CPU was clocked at a fixed frequency.
In summary: this patent is not worth a lot.
Intel pre-emptively sues Patriot (Score:5, Informative)
Here are some choice quotes from the article [signonsandiego.com]:
"It would suggest that every PC manufactured after 1994 or 1995 is benefiting from this technology," Wallin said. As the company put it in a recent news release, "It is now time for Patriot Scientific and its shareholders to be properly remunerated."
Wallin added, "This sounds terrible, but we intend to get around to everybody."
Intel is taking action already. They have filed suit [signonsandiego.com] against Patriot to prevent Patriot from threatening them.
Re:GAAARGH! (Score:3, Insightful)
Kierthos
Re:GAAARGH! (Score:2)
Re:GAAARGH! (Score:2)
(This gratituous Aliens reference was brought to you today by boredom.)
Re:GAAARGH! (Score:5, Funny)
This is a serious infringement of my patent. Hire yourself a good lawyer buddy cause you're gonna get it.
4791886 (Score:3, Funny)
I fail to see how that relates.
Re:Screw this patent crap. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Screw this patent crap. (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't that precisely what the patent office is supposed to do? The problem is that they are inundated with so many requests that they don't have the resources (or desire for that matter) to adequately analyze and process each application.
I think the IP court you suggest would be subject to exactly the same problem, but with the added detriment of procedure in our never-ending legal process.
Though I haven't read the patent in question, it's possible that Intel's work in the 90s reflects prior art - but the patent office doesn't have time to find out one way or the other.
Re:Screw this patent crap. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Screw this patent crap. (Score:2)
Re:Why is this a FPP? (Score:2)
Re:Why is this a FPP? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why is this a FPP? (Score:2)
No, IP law needs to make sense, and have some relevance to the average Joe (not just megacorps).
I don't doubt your accuracy, on the legal side of the equasion. But when we piss and moan about the state of IP laws in the US (and the EU seems to have similar ideas), we don't espouse any "Leninist" ideas (as such)... We just want laws that can at le
Re:Why is this a FPP? (Score:3, Interesting)
When you are legally wronged, you do not have the right to just throw your hands in the air while the problem gets worse. You have a responsiblity to mitigate, or limit, the damages as best you can. Just because the other person started a fire, you can't let it burn the whole place down and blame it on them if
Re:Why is this a FPP? (Score:2)
Re:Why is this a FPP? (Score:2)
Well, yes, you can. It's entirely legal, and six years is not an unreasonable period for detecting patent infringement and preparing a lawsuit.
There comes a point where if a patent owner doesn't stop the theft of their technology, they forfeit their right to go to the courts...
No, they don't forfeit their right by not prosecuting, even if they were aware
Re:Why is this a FPP? (Score:2)
Re:Why is this a FPP? (Score:2)
Uh, except patents generally take a couple years to get passed. And anyway, you can wait as long as you want to exercise your patent rights if you want to. U
Re:Why is this a FPP? (Score:2)
This has to be one of the more idiotic statements I've read here. Why this got modded as "Insteresting" I'll never know.
Re:Why is this a FPP? (Score:2)
Variable speed clocks?
These were not a "new idea" in 1998.
Just because someone is able to convince the
USPTO of originality doesn't mean the idea was original.
(Still confused? See "Pop-Under Advertising Technology")
Re:WHY? (Score:5, Insightful)
These suits, although not legally, are basically extortionate. Nobody wants to actually go to trial, least of all the company bringing forth the claim. Said company just wants someone to mail money to their post office box in order that they be left alone.
Once one person buys a "license" they can then use this to spread FUD that said purchase "proves" their case. See SCO/Sun/Microsoft.
One possible defense approach is to argue that since the parts are purchased you are not the primary litigant at law. Plaintiff must first prove their case against the manufaturer of the part before you can be held liable for infringement. You may or may not be financially liable, but it isn't your job to defend the IP if you are not its genesis. If the argument is accepted by the judge this does not dismiss the case, but holds it in abeyance until the primary claim is settled.
Then the plaintiff must decide if they want to go up against the big gun or not. If they do not then the pending case will eventually be dismissed. If they do then at least the smaller fish has the big one as its ally, and if the big one prevails than the orginal suit may be dismissed as groundless.
If big fish loses then the settlement may be held to have sufficiently compensated the plaintiff and the suit against the smaller fish may be dismissed so long as they no longer infringe. Which they're not likely to do because the OEM source will have licensed the technology in order to continue to sell it.
While all of this is going on the legal issues become a bigger and bigger tarball encompassing more and more companies who are more and more likely to just settle and get it the bloody hell over with.
It's basically stealing the nerdy kid's lunch money.
KFG
Re:STUPID STUPID STUPID (Score:5, Insightful)
Then why the FUCK do we hold the reseller of a product they neither designed nor manufactured liable for patent infringement?
If there were any sense at all to the American legal system, there wouldn't be this stupid tangle of a case because it would never make it to a judge - the court's clerk would be allowed to immediately burn the motion and sprinkle its ashes in whatever drug and cleaning agent cocktail the company's lawyer was drinking at the time.