Comment by jbay808

6 years ago

Since when did that matter in patent law? Patents are public domain, and ignorance of a patent is not a defense against having infringed. Since at least 2012, the US has had a first-to-file policy instead of first-to-invent.

There's no legal reason to worry about being influenced by a patent. The only concern might be boxing your creativity where you can't think of alternative solutions to a problem once you've seen one solution. That doesn't seem like a strong enough reason for a blanket policy.

IANAL but this confuses me.

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jbay808

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jburgess777  6 years ago

What I was told is that if you research the patent and aware of its existence then you may be guilty of willful enfringement with treble the normal penalties:

https://www.jonesday.com/en/insights/2016/06/supreme-court-u...

https://www.ip-watch.org/2016/07/26/us-high-court-restores-t...

  • jacques_chester  6 years ago

    More precisely, a standing policy that researching patents is forbidden is prima facie evidence that your employees couldn't have possibly known about an existing patent. That means that a plaintiff suing for willful infringement will need to find evidence that someone went out of their way to ignore the policy. That might be quite difficult.

    (Of course: not a lawyer, this is not legal advice)

    • jbay808  6 years ago

      Wow, I'm amazed that this would hold up. That's like saying that if I drive with a blindfold on, I couldn't possibly have willfully caused an accident because, as a matter of policy, I couldn't have been aware of the other cars on the road.

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