TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: AT&T Licensed the Transistor For Free

Re: AT&T Licensed the Transistor For Free

AES (siegman@stanford.edu)
Wed, 18 May 2005 14:20:48 -0700

In article <telecom24.220.9@telecom-digest.org>,
The Kaminsky Family <kaminsky@kaminsky.org> wrote:

> hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

>> I presume other Bell Labs patents were also available free;
>> indeed, I never knew of AT&T making money from licensing
>> its many inventions. It appears patents were more for
>> freedom of use than profit. IBM adopted a similar policy
>> in the 1950s. Both did so from anti-trust settlements.

> Don't I wish that were true! A company I once worked for got
> sued by AT&T for patent infringement, and spent a considerable
> effort in proving that we were not infringing. They came back
> with something to the effect that, "You don't get it. Here are
> fifty more patents you are infringing on. We have thousands more
> once you prove that you're not infringing on these. Just give up
> and pay us!"

> I don't know the whole story -- I was not working there at the
> time -- but as I understand it, the settlement was a yearly fee
> in a rather significant amount (for a small company).

> Mark

Folks at misc.int-property may find this post interesting.

U.S. Constitution, Article. I. Section. 8. (1): " . . . promote the
Progress of Science and useful Arts" -- how all those legal complexities
in the patent system and all those all-too-easily obtained trivial
patents are _really_ employed in practice?

Post Followup Article Use your browser's quoting feature to quote article into reply
Go to Next message: Tony P.: "Re: AT&T Licensed the Transistor For Free"
Go to Previous message: Tony P.: "Re: Foreign Exchange (FX) Lines Still in Use?"
May be in reply to: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com: "AT&T Licensed the Transistor For Free"
Next in thread: Tony P.: "Re: AT&T Licensed the Transistor For Free"
TELECOM Digest: Home Page