A Pandora 2 Concept


Well it's not that you couldn't make a similar device, but the patent holder wants Royalties for use of their patents. It's like how Kodak pioneered Digital photography, still to this day people that make Digital cameras need to give money to Kodak for use of them.


It's just that a small outfit like OPT can't afford to pay royalties on some of these design patents.
 
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@TrashMG


Have you missed what I have been saying, There are generic 360 hinge designs that have been around for ages, you could use one of them without fear of being sued or having to pay royalties. That's all there is to it.


With that, I conclude my involvement in the discussion regarding the awesomely interesting (not!) Hinge. - lol
 
No I haven't been missing it.. first off who cares about the f'ing Hinge, it doesn't matter it's not what the concern is about. the actual Hinge and how it's made has little impact to these patent concerns... Some other devices have patents like "Rotatable screen allows use as a tablet" for example this one issued to Lenevo... So any company that builds a laptop similar to this design could be forced to pay royalties or face litigation. Notice the title of the patent it's pretty generic right? "Method and apparatus for changing a display direction of a screen ".. A lot of companies profit for allowing others to use their patents it's how the business world works.


Not that this exact patent would conflict with a Pandora 2 device with a similar display.. it's just that there are these types of things going on and it can be a pain.
 
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@TrashMG ,


If you read that Lenovo patent , it's very specific - did you read it?. By the way that patent is for a rotating screen not the 360 hinge we are discussing. As I have said, there are generic designs you can use without fear of being sued , that's the point ie 360 degree hinges are not cart blanche patented.
 
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I think your not reading it, it just mentions a laptop display that can rotate flip down, it doesn't get into any details of the actual making of the Hinge.


Edit.. in none of my posts I said my argument had anything to do with a 360 hinge.. just that someone else may carry a similar patent. I'm arguing patent law not the making and use of a stupid goddamn Hinge. I used the Lenovo patent of an example of how Generic these patents can be and how they can be used to bully smaller companies that want to do similar designs.
 
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It's not a 360 degree hinge. It's a flip up and spin 180. My Fujitsu Lifebook/tablet has the exact same hinge , it's not a 360 hinge. And It is very specific in it's detail.
 
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It's not a 360 degree hinge. It's a flip up and spin 180. My Fujitsu Lifebook/tablet has the exact same hinge , it's not a 360 hinge. And It is very specific in it's detail.

Which most likely means they are paying Lenovo some amount of money.
 
Missing completely the point that it is not a 360 degree hinge.


On a side note: The patent by Lenovo was filed in Nov 2007, My Lifebook is older than that, it was released in May 2007. Which is why the Lenovo patent is more specific in it's patent in my opinion
 
This is what you said:

I seriously doubt any patent on that would hold. It just wouldn't be defendable in court. Just about everything is patented (or applied for), even the clam shell design the pandora uses now, you'd bet Nintendo has a patent on that. Is Pandora being sued for it, no. Just like the tablet designed by apple, whats it called, oh yeah the ipad, they have patents on it, but even though they took Samsung to court and initially won, the courts over turned the rulings. There is some sense in patent law. It's almost impossible to have a patent hold on such a design.
You're brushing off the idea of litigation because, in your opinion, the patent wouldn't hold. I pointed out just one of many major cases where an enenforceable patent brought a major company to a grinding halt for weeks before paying hundreds of millions of dollars just so they could continue operation for patents which were eventually dismissed entirely. RIM later went on to have two more such patent wars. Amazon has sued people over their one-click and affiliate patents. Apple has sued for "tablet" design, a patent which I believe was eventually dismissed due to prior art, but they still collected while it was active all the same. There are hundreds of cases of companies suing over patents that are either very generic or completely obvious, patents that should never have been issued in the first place, but they are still patents and until they are overturned (a process that takes weeks, months, sometimes years) other companies are still bound by them.

No one will litigate against you if you use a generic/historical 360 degree hinge . They wouldn't have any grounds to do so. If you were to take that attitude , you wouldn't do anything in the tech world as everything you do could get you potentially sued if you were to go with your line of thinking.
There you go again, saying that no one will litigate over a generic patent. They do, frequently. Part of Microsoft's end-of-life for software is to use the patents they've accumulated respective to that software, most of which are completely obvious, to get one last stab at profit from that software by suing competing similar products. It happens all the time, and saying it won't happen because any given patent is undefendable is burying your head in the sand and hoping for the best.

On a different note: I can't believe I got drawn into a conversation on hinges. - lol
It's only a conversation on hinges because you keep making it so. I'm trying to have a conversation on why using an established patent idea is a bad idea. Who cares if there is a different, currently unpatented way of making a 360 degree flip back hinge? It doesn't change the fact that you suggested that no one would try to litigate over a generic or obvious patent because it wouldn't hold up. If a design for a reverse flip hinge can be conceived and a patent lawyer can confirm it is original, then GREAT! If, however, that lawyer finds one patent that might kind of be similar and OPT goes ahead with the design anyway because, as you advise, no one would litigate over something so obvious, I will not hesitate to let them know just how stupid of a risk they are taking.
 
Again there are many generic and non patented 360 degree hinge designs . You made the point that 360 degree hinges are patented cart blanche. For one thats not true. Secondly, I said you could use a non patented design, That is true. For the record I never mentioned anything about generic patent's, that irks me because you are now putting words in my mouth. There is no more to say.


It's like saying Resistive screens are more expensive than Capacitive screens , ridiculous.


For the record here's an example of a 360 degree hinge that someone has developed, just so it's clear what it is.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/bjUOXcyrqp4?feature=oembed
 
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Again there are many generic and non patented 360 degree hinge designs . You made the point that 360 degree hinges are patented cart blanche.
Fine, I apologize. I shouldn't have said 360 degree hinges were a patented idea when only specific methods of doing so have been patented. 4 years ago when the original design was being discussed all the suggestions about rotating and 360 degree flipping hinges were met with patent numbers. Designs may exist, but no one came up with them at the time.

Secondly, I said you could use a non patented design, That is true. There is no more to say.
You also said that any generic patent would be tossed out of court as undefendable, and so long as you still believe that is true there is much to say.
 
Lets leave it there. I dont want to derail Binky's thread anymore, it's unfair. Im happy to leave it at that.
 
CruxCase Flip eh, nice find vcoleiro. And its available on preorder via Kickstarter. I wonder if CruxCase would collaborate with OPT Ltd. Double the awesomeness :)
 
Lets leave it there. I dont want to derail Binky's thread anymore, it's unfair. Im happy to leave it at that.
Of course you're happy to leave it at that. You aren't answering for the bad advice you're giving.


Look, I apologized for the blanket statement on 360 flip hinges, why can't you apologize for suggesting OPT has nothing to fear from patent litigation?
 
Because they wouldnt if they used a generic non patented design. The whole point of the argument for me was that whenever someone mentions a 360 degree screen , it gets shit canned by someone saying Patent issue. It irked me because it is possible to do without getting sued. It just comes across as a spanner that people keep throwing in the works to stop a 360 hinge being considered in a Pandora 2 by those that dont want the clamshell design to change. If you just came out and said , I don't like the 360 hinge design then fine, shit it's not my first choice either. I prefer the flip up and slide down design Binky first put up.
 
That may have been your intent but it isn't what the words you used said.


Yes, if they used a generic, non patented design they would probably be safe. You didn't say that though. You said that an undefendable patent would be thrown out of court, as if that makes it ok to use a patented design if it is sufficiently generic enough. It doesn't matter how generic or undefendable it is, if someone has the patent and takes them to court, OPT is screwed; there is just no way they could afford to settle and the time it would take to get it sorted out, even if they win, would cripple a Pandora 2 even more than the delays for the Pandora 1 has.
 
Yes in my opinion , if someone were to try and patent 360 degree hinges in an umbrella/generic fashioin regardless of design , that would be ridiculous and thrown out . I stand by that statement - If you disagree on that point then we disagree, fair enough, youre welcome to your opinion.


Also, it's fair to say that the Lenovo patent that everyone was concerned about , actually turned out to not be a 360 hinge patent.
 
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Yes in my opinion , if someone were to try and patent 360 degree hinges in an umbrella/generic fashioin regardless of design , that would be ridiculous and thrown out . I stand by that statement - If you disagree on that point then we disagree.
Then your opinion is wrong and if over a decade of precedent isn't enough to demonstrate that then I can think of nothing more I can say.
 
@WizardStan


Nice.


If there's over a decade of precedent with people generically patenting generic and historical ideas', then that is good news. I call dibs on the wheel. Im off now to the patent office to lodge my patent on it. No one do the same ok, it's mine.
 
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Yes, if you somehow get a patent for the wheel then you will be free to sue every tire manufacturer in existence, and you will win, or be paid out of court, every time, so long as that patent is valid. Or assassinated, that's a possibly morbid outcome of basically taking on the world. Eventually, weeks, maybe months later (they'd be under especially huge pressure to dismiss such a grossly incorrectly granted patent, maybe even days) your patent will be reviewed and thrown out, but during the time between your initial request for an injunction and when the patent is removed (and it would absolutely be removed as quickly as the system could allow) you reap the royalties. That's assuming someone actually is fool enough to give you the patent for the wheel. People have tried and failed, thankfully. Most of the time, a generic application is rejected from the beginning, exactly as it should be.


Modern technology is not a wheel. Obvious patents in software and electronics, and sometimes even simple hardware, are granted all the time because the people granting the patents either do not understand the technology well enough or are in a rush to get it finished and don't pay as much attention to it as they should, thus it looks novel to them at the time. I've already given you several examples you can investigate. If this were not the case, that frivolous patents on generic designs were never issued, then there would be no case of any patent being found to have been incorrectly awarded. And when they are awarded, you need to prove to a judge that previous art exists, that the patent should not have been awarded, before a review even begins. With the wheel there is thousands of years of prior art, it's so obvious even the most ludite of judges can recognize it. Try explaining the difference between your MP3 decoding technology and someone else's patented MP3 decoding technology to someone who has trouble understanding their VCR, and you are looking at a difficult fight.
 
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