Quote:
Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard
Can you defend a patent? Won't someone just build them anyway, ignoring your patent? The only way to earn money (for a "small" guy) from an invention is to build it and sell them.
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I have a few patents, and have had many discussions with patent attorneys. If somebody wants to infringe your patent, and you want to take him to court, budget $1,000,000. Threatening letters from your attorney are much cheaper, but carry negligible legal weight.
The real value from a patent is when talking to investors. Doug Pelmear (remember him?) got a large sum of money on the basis of a worthless patent application. I refer to his patent as "worthless" on the technical ground that it never has worked and never will work. Doug, however, got money out of it from technically unsophisticated financial and political types.
There's a lesson in there somewhere.