Re: homemade inkjet printer head

From: Bathsheba Grossman (sheba@bathsheba.com)
Date: Sat Jun 08 2002 - 00:25:13 EEST


On Fri, 7 Jun 2002 PENQUAKR74@aol.com wrote:
> My following comments are qualified by my 20 plus years of experience as a
> patent licensing professional for the Electric Power Research Institute, the
> University of California, and Manager of Technology Commercialization and
> Licensing for SRI International:

Thanks much for participating - it's great to hear from somebody who
knows what they're talking about. :-)

> Whether a patent holder will go after someone with a homemade system depends
> on the level of harm that might be done to his market position. If homemade
> RP machines were to become a serious threat to his market, then it would in
> his best interest to prosecute at least one "sorry ass" to make a point. The
> other reason that a patent HAS to prosecute an infringer is that in order to
> maintain his patent rights as exclusive, he must enforce his patent rights.
> I have many cases that I can cite where a patent holder used preventative
> measures to go after the smallest offenders to avoid a costly legal battle
> down the road.

Even I have heard of this kind of thing, especially in the context of
software patents.

What irks me about the Solidscape situation is that they have, as far
as one can tell, no intention of adapting the wax-drop/soluble-support
method to produce larger objects. (This makes a certain amount of
sense, since there's so much competition in the 2"-12" size range, but
in my opinion there's a niche open in that no process makes completely
burnable parts _and_ fully supports undercutting. Which, of course,
is what I need.)

Obviously I don't want to step on anyone's legal toes, but if
Solidscape is committed to making and protecting a narrow application -
to micro objects only - of a method that could be more broadly useful,
I hope I can be forgiven for feeling that a resource is being wasted.

-- 
-Sheba
Bathsheba Grossman                                         (831) 429-8224
Sculpture                                                   bathsheba.com
Creative prototyping                                       protoshape.com

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