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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 10 2013 @ 11:30 AM EDT |
To be more specific, what the licensee considers reasonable may not comport with
what the industry has considered reasonable for several decades.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 10 2013 @ 11:34 AM EDT |
Also, BB very well explains that sometimes it's the licensee
that acts in bad faith. If you assume that patents are valid
and reasonable, and provide a benefit to society (I don't),
then having some way to go after those who act in bad faith
is necessary.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 10 2013 @ 03:38 PM EDT |
| The 1800 Contacts refusal to license saga has been in newspicks a few times now. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 10 2013 @ 03:59 PM EDT |
I beleive there is a right not to license, and that leads to a right
to enjoin unlicensed use.
Therein lies the rub. When a patentee
agrees to offer their technology under non-discriminatory terms, they sacrifice
the right not to license. They are saying: it does not matter if you are
producing a competing product, it does not matter if you pay your employees less
than minimum wage, it does not matter if your CEO hunts spotted owls. As long as
you pay a reasonable royalty, you will be allowed to implement the patented
technology.
Because of this, if someone refuses to pay the royalty,
there can be no damage suffered by the patentee other than the monetary loss
of the royalty. The patentee can't suffer from unfair competition because it
has already been agreed that their technology as incorporated in the standard
will not be used as a competitive advantage.
As I understand it, the law
is that injunctions should only be granted in situations where a monetary remedy
is insufficient to make whole the offended party. Since the only damages that
can be suffered are monetary, an injunction is not required to protect the
patentee's interest -- any infringing activity can ultimately be rectified with
a cash settlement or equivalent.
As much as I despise Apple as a company
and find patents in general to be detrimental to our society, I have to agree
with Judge Posner's logic in interpreting this aspect of the law. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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