Keep in mind, of course, that a patent is only a license to sue.? A patent holder would need to be able to prove infringement, have enough wherewithal for lawyers' fees and court costs, and have the stomach to persist for months, years, or even decades to hope to receive compensation for infringement.? For private inventors and small companies, patents almost always make no sense to pursue, unfortunately.? Let the big companies use their armies of lawyers to duke it out against each other.? For example, Broadcom extracting $891 million from rival Qualcomm back when I worked for BRCM (2006 to 2016) to settle all outstanding lawsuits.? HTH.
Jim FordLaguna Hills, California, USA
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On Saturday, February 8, 2025 at 11:23:57 AM CST, M Yachad via groups.io <yachadm@...> wrote:
"The software was made by a Danish Engineer,? who gave it away on the forums as freeware.? I think this was the mistake of his life."
I'll share my story - we also made the mistake of our lives!
In the late 1970's, I was part of a very small South African company - we developed the world's first ultrasonic car alarm. The same alarm that has been installed in one form or another on millions of cars since.
In 1980, I led the team to exhibit it at the Chicago Consumer Electronics Show.
The response was beyond our wildest dreams, and I specifically remember a Chinese company, which still exists today, which placed an order for 100 units, and paid for them on the spot.
We continued to sell a few thousands, and one day later that same year, I got a shock.
One of my customers sent me a photo of a leaflet showing an attractive copy of our alarm, made in Taiwan, and now marketed in North America, at a price well below our own manufacturing cost.
Our legal advice was that we messed up not patenting it, and there was nothing we could do.
A hard lesson learnt; we all moved on to bigger and better things, but much wiser and highly distrustful of the Chinese as thieves and counterfeiters of others' brainwork - all subsequent developments in the Automotive Electronics field were patented properly.
Next time you activate your car alarm, take a second to remember the original and genuine inventors!
Menahem Yachad
www.condoraudio.com
Jerusalem
