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StefanMohl
You made a nice update to this after Patexia responded to your criticism (from ...
I_B_GREEN
There is a website organization for exposing prior art for any patent. With ...
What were they thinking: The world is your lawyer
Brian Bailey
9/13/2012 6:58 PM EDT
When most companies wish to invalidate a patent, they have to find prior art which basically shows that the patent office didn’t find something already published when they granted the patent. The prior art usually has to be from before the submission date to the patent office. That can be an expensive undertaking – especially since it is often lawyers who are doing the work and you know how much they charge. At the same time they often don’t have the required depth of knowledge to do this effectively because they, just like the patent office, can often fail to see subtle differences or similarities. On many occasions I have been brought in as a consultant to help with prior art searches.
The other day I was surprised to see a submission on another publication site in this area. That site allows anyone to make postings and this posting was really quite interesting. It creates a competition to find prior art – offering a $5000 reward for the best prior art found. They provide the patent that they wish to invalidate – 5,825,640 that describes a charge pump in a voltage controlled oscillator.
Now some of their “rules” are interesting in that they require a submission to be from a single person and that person can only submit one entry. It then says: “If your reference has already been submitted or is not acceptable, the system will automatically reject it.” They also say that “All submissions are subject to Patexia's contest legal terms. Failure to follow these rules may lead to disqualification from the contest.” The legal terms are not provided on the website.
Oh and just in case you are wondering who is behind this contest? Well the Patexia website gives it away - Freescale.
So, I give them a high mark for taking an interesting approach, but almost a zero for execution. There is no transparency in the process, and while they say “The best submission is guaranteed to receive the prize.” There is no indication of how or when this is established and paid.
Brian Bailey – keeping you covered
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Steve_B
9/14/2012 8:01 PM EDT
What's even funnier is that the original assignee was Motorola. Did Freescale forget to license this one when the were spun off lo those many years ago? And now the owner (Google? Motorola Solutions?) is pressing them for a fee? Sure smells like it.
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Sreeram_#1
9/14/2012 8:59 PM EDT
Not surprising; coming from a company that has been announcing products (such as the K60) well before the tools were ready and the silicon worked. They have forgotten (unless you are an automotive company)as to who their customers are. There is nothing "free" about Freescale.
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Battar
9/15/2012 10:28 AM EDT
It's worrying how easy it is to find prior art to invalidate patents which have been granted, especially in the EU. It shows what a poor job the USPTO is doing. You don't need 500$ an hour lawyer to find prior art - any competent engineer can do it. It's a pity the USPTO doesn't encourage submissions from the public concerning prior art - applicants competitors are willing to do the examiner's work for free.
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I_B_GREEN
9/28/2012 1:17 PM EDT
1998 only 4 years left on patent
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I_B_GREEN
9/28/2012 1:19 PM EDT
This is just a synchrounous cmos converter
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I_B_GREEN
9/28/2012 1:19 PM EDT
It must be leveraged with other patents to be getting this kind of attention
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I_B_GREEN
9/28/2012 1:22 PM EDT
I am sure this is only valid in a narrow field. because charge pumps in cmos have been around for decades.
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I_B_GREEN
9/28/2012 1:24 PM EDT
There is a website organization for exposing prior art for any patent. With patents listed by firms-entities that wish to invalidate based on prior art.
Name is escaping me today.
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StefanMohl
10/11/2012 8:08 AM EDT
You made a nice update to this after Patexia responded to your criticism (from the response, it seems to me that Patexia really are trying, it also turned out that Freescale is involved because the example patent they are trying to invalidate is Freescale's!). Perhaps you could add a link in a salient location to your new article with the response from Patexia!
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