Digital BW, The Print

C D Tobie <CDTobie@...> wrote:

... 
> One concept involved is "prior art"; if someone else has done it  
> before, or publicly described it before, its not patentable. 
> Hard to imagine that there isn't prior art in this area...

The reality, however, is that large companies use the threat of litigation as an economic club to beat the small companies into submission.  "Previous art" and other defenses may be laregely irrelevant if a small company can't afford to fight.

In my previous life at the FTC, I ran into the once mighty (real) AT&T doing this.  As described by the general counsel of one of their small victims -- Intel -- AT&T claimed in patents to have, in effect, invented silicon.  They were clubbing "cross-licenses" from most of the small technology companies.  My case got folded into the DOJ case that ended splitting up AT&T.  Unfortunately, during the last 20 years an extreme "Chicago School of economics" (no capital "E" deserved there) philosophy has wiped out anti-trust enforcement.  That era, I hope, is over, but old habits die hard.  Patent abuse and the use of questionable patents to monopolize fields -- or attempt to -- is a reality we'll have to live with for a long time.  

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com