experience of small companies owning patents, or small inventors owning patents, is that big corps usually find a way to get around, especially when collaborating with the inventor before. (It is why the inventor of smartcard get out of France, feeling abused by his big partner)
I'm sure that Rossi won't be able to block similar devices if it works. patents are also used to block small companies, by fear of legal battle (that they will win, but after being bankrupted). I'm sure that if a big corp own a patent, no small will dare to innovate (alone) in the domain. il also helps big companies to block good (or bad) patent infrigement accusation, but making bad counter accusations... (see Apple/MS/intel/samsung battles) the expensive patent office are mostly useful for big corp, to maintain dominance of the big corp. strategic for the nation! small inventors seldom succeed alone, but there are some lucky guys.few. 2011/11/28 Mary Yugo <[email protected]> > So, if I understand you correctly, patent protection doesn't work. So why > do we bother with an expensive patent office and all those millions > (billions?) of patents? >
