On 7/15/05, Nathanael Nerode <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Michael K. Edwards wrote: > > The Federal > > Circuit, en banc, characterized one defendant's reliance on a similar > > statistic (offered by their counsel and apparently relied on in good > > faith to the extent that that means anything) as "flagrant disregard > > of presumptively valid patents without analysis" -- and I can find no > > better words for it. > > I am not inclined to give any weight to the Federal Circuit statement you > quoted given that it seems to be from before the rejection of the "No legal > opinion == wilful infringement" assumption made by that Circuit. As a matter > of fact, a ridiculously large number of the patents granted by the US Patent > Office these days are obviously invalid.
Er, that's a quote from the very opinion that breached stare decisis in order to dispose of the "adverse inference" rule. If you had a later revision of the law (statutory or judicial) in mind, now would be a good time to cite it. > >But it's still no basis > >for a claim that you have, or anyone else has, exercised "due care" > >with regard to any particular patent, let alone a suite of dozens that > >has withstood the kind of scrutiny that Fraunhofer's has. > Perhaps "due care" would be sufficiently exercised by the following: Looking > at the "mp3 patent" titles, none of them claim to cover decoding. > > Anyway, Fraunhofer's patents are all invalid in Europe under the European > Patent Convention, which prohibits patents on mathematics. Perhaps it's time > to revive non-US for distribution of mp3 decoders. Do you have opinion of competent counsel in support of that assertion? If the patent that I picked to look at closely is any indication, I doubt that the European Patent Convention invalidates it -- but I am not qualified to judge, and I suspect that neither are you. Cheers, - Michael (IANAL, TINLA)
