No patent, no legal case.

But this is really bad PR for the company. Their name will not remain secret for long. (In fact I might go searching patents to see if I can find it.) Once they are known, this is unbelievably bad PR.

All it takes is an act of legislation.

So the government can't just take it away.

Aside from which, it is a property right, once granted, and to take property rights away you have to satisfy the takings clause of the constitution.

So your solution is barred by the constitution on two

In USA, the constitution does not bar the government from taking a patent. It just gives the power to grant it. In fact, 28 U.S.C. § 1498 (“Section 1498”) allows the US Government to make any item patented with only the stipulation to only pay "reasonable" costs.

Once you obtain a patent, you have a property right in it, so the government cannot jut take it. As for making it, it is not the government making this particular item.

I identified the USA, because patent laws are different in each country (or collection of countries), and I wanted to make clear that I was not making a general statement.

That said, it is a pretty common practice to hold patents on the same invention in multiple countries.

Most governments can take extraordinary steps in such situations. But if you feel strongly that a company should let people die in a medical emergency, then so be it. You’ve shown who you are.

For cause, in the patent context, means there was something wrong in the patent granting process - for example the patent is invalidated for some reason related to subject matter not being patentable, fraud by the inventor, prior art that invalidates the patent.

How I feel is irrelevant. I'm explaining the law. (I practiced intellectual property law for 13 years.)

What I have said is that a company woud be assinine to sue for infringement in a case like this. Their best option is to grant a limited, no fee, license to the company printing the valves for the duraiton of the crisis. That allows their invention to be used for public good in these extraordinary circumstances, and still allows them to benefit from their invention for the rest of the limited monopoly the patent gives them.

Intellectual property is no different than tangible property. The person who owns it has rights. They can legally choose to exercise those rights or not. Many companies are makig good, public-service, choices - Comcast and Spectrum, for example, are providing free internet access for 60 days. They are doing this not becuase the government required them to give their property away for free, but because they made socially responsible choices.

I would encourage all companies to make socially responsible choices. This one, so far, has apparently chosen not to. That is their legal right. I'm also pretty sure that if they stick to this path (1) there will be somoene (or many someones) who volunteer to pay the damages in the infringement lawsuit and (2) the company will have committed suicide.

And you keep explaining US law. That does not apply in this case.

Three articles I’ve read on this have not named the company.

If I find it; I’ll include it here...

There are some disgusting people in this world.

made their own to save lives in their Country. emergencies cause a lot of things to happen that wouldn't ordinarily happen. Especially if necessities aren't available in the quantities needed and someone else cam fill that need with something they make themselves.

The other big question that struck me was, HOW on earth is one company able to charge m$11,000 for product that can be reproduced for $1.00! Don't give me the BS that they spent years developing it so they're recovering their costs. I accept that, but to try to recover them in 1-2 years is flat out REED!

And that's the way the patent works. The owner has the right to exclude everyone else from making it (a limited monopoly) in exchange for disclosing to the rest of the world how it is made - so after the end of the limited monopoly people who want to make it for $1 are free to do so.

The purpose of the patent laws are to encourage people to be innovative, otherwise things that only cost $1 to make might never be invented.

That said, the patent owner needs their head examined for threatening to sue. It would be smart to grant a limited no-cost license to print the valves during this emergency. That would protect their monopoly, and generate good will.

Thanks for the legal info. I agree with your assessment.

And - sometimes corporations don't listen to their counsel, anyway.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51911070

Sorry the site doesn't let me copy & paste.

I ws thinking either a distribution valve or a check valve. From the article it looks like a check valve use to prevent back flow. You want the air going on way.
m

The people who lose their jobs when the company revenue dries up
The investors that lose their money ...

The people who will die because the company didn't have revenue from this product to fund R&D on the next life-saving product

There is a scene in The West Wing where Josh is arguing that an AIDS pill costs 2 cents to make ... and Toby points out that the first pill cast $5 billion (or some huge number).

I can see an patent exception for a world-wide crisis but to generally allow a company to reverse-engineer a product and skip the research, design, and testing is a terrible long-term practice.

Investment would halt -- no ROI.
R&D would vanish -- no way to recover costs.
Innovation would instantly stop -- why work to figure it out, just wait for someone else - then copy.

There is a reason we have International copyright laws to protect Intellectual Property.

Without some protections, there would no advances.

That is merely a statement of faith. It is not a fact.

I guess we need to stop publicly funded research, since it’s a waste of money. What is the point of using my tax dollars to fund research, if the economic benefit is going to someone else.

Likewise, I’d like to stop public funding of universities, scholarships, and student aid for all of these assholes who are using it to get an education on my dime, and then charge me a premium on what I was supposed to be investing the money for. It’s a scam.

Could you let me know who got the patent on TCP/IP (the protocol on which the internet runs) and who got the patent on HTML (the tagged data syntax which made the web possible)?

I’ll settle for the answers to those questions, along with your promise that you clicked this link:

https://oedci.uspto.gov/OEDCI/practitionerDetails?regisNum=36452

That being said, I TOTALLY support federal and state research. Everything can't be about profit, sometimes (many times) it's about the public good. A great many products, treatments, and ideas come from federally funded research, even when there is no immediate tangible benefit - we're training the people who may go on to do great things.

I clicked on your link ... the patent for TCP is currently held by Intellectual Ventures I LLC (had to look that up).
Tim Berners-Lee worked for CERN when he invented HTML, CERN is a UN-funded entity (I knew that one).

Ford would have never build the Explorer if they didn't expect a return.
GM would have never created OnStar if Ford could have simply copied it.

"I stand by my assertion ..."

But can you support that assertion with objective evidence?

If not, it's not so much an assertion as it is simply an allegation.

No protections, no advances?

Let's ask Dr. Jonas Salk what he thinks.

Who are fundamentally incapable of understanding the notion of doing good.

It is pointless to waste time on them.

The lives saved here should have been sacrificed on the altar of greed.

Last edited Wed Mar 18, 2020, 12:13 AM - Edit history (1)

The volunteers just proved that the valve works at likely lower tolerances under the duress of needing to solve critical medical device shortages. I hope the original manufacturer is ramping up production, or looking at how to share their design with qualified makers around the world. 3D printing is a reality that is an obvious fix for just-in-time inventory failure$ leading to life or death consequences.

There’s goodwill and money to be made in the licensing and volume of business to be had in the world. The unnamed manufacturer should be rewarded for their design, but I sure wish they’d meet this moment with something other than a lawsuit and what looks like greed.

No care for human life but for $$$$$.

Without knowing more about them, I don’t how much of this is poor management, lack of sophistication, and/or scale of operations such they can perhaps justify the part’s price relative to its novelty/necessity, and scarcity. A knee-jerk cease and desist letter is a standard reaction under normal times - ideally it wouldn’t lead to a lawsuit, no, it should lead to partnership(s).

Certainly, a respiratory pandemic should have been built into their business planning contingencies. The company, whether a behemoth medical supplier or smaller concern, is lucky their name isn’t attached to their product in the media coverage. Gives them a chance to do the right thing, and become a better company as a result - ya know, not just look like dumb greedy bastards.

Otherwise, am tickled the volunteers rose to the occasion. Is a moment for makers everywhere.

When the real problem is price gouging by hospitals, drug companies, and medical equipment manufacturers.

The evil triad.

I suspect they do. Have they approved the clone?

I worked for several years in the medical device industry. FDA approval and certification is quite thorough and takes time before a device is approved for use. Should clones by uncertified manufacturers be permitted because they are cheaper?

Should those protections be bypassed in instances like this and who is deemed responsible if something went wrong?

Which, in the software world, is legal. Why not just put the file in the internet then anyone can make it?