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It looks like patent holders just have to fight it out in court. I would expect that the ones with the most money and the prior art trump card wins. I think the Deep Flight subs are very nice, and they likely have a number of utility patentable items on them. But lets not get carried away. If Hawkes utility patent had any real teeth, Nuytco wouldn't be producing the ORCASUB with SAS. Of course Nuytco is in Canada. But I would expect that the international patent treaties might apply. Of course Hawkes could also assign or license the patent to SAS and/or Nuytco, but I have reason to believe Hawkes wants to build all the subs him self. http://www.subaviators.com/Default.aspx?tabid=85&language=en-US ===================================================== "An important limitation on the ability of a patent owner to successfully assert the patent in civil litigation is the accused infringer's right to challenge the validity of that patent. Civil courts hearing patent cases can and often do declare patents not valid. The grounds on which a patent can be found not valid are set out in the relevant patent legislation and vary between countries. Often, the grounds are a subset of the requirements for patentability in the relevant country. Whilst an infringer is generally free to rely on any available ground of invalidity (such as a prior publication, for example), some countries have sanctions to prevent the same validity questions being relitigated. An example is the UK Certificate of contested validity." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent ==================================================================== Criticism of patents Patents have been criticized for being granted on already known inventions. In 1938, for example, R. Buckminster Fuller, inventor of the geodesic dome wrote: "At present (1938), the (US patent) files, are so extraordinarily complex and the items so multitudinous that a veritable army of governmental servants is required to attend them and sort them into some order of distinguishable categories to which reference may be made when corresponding with patent applicants for the purposes of examiner citation of "prior art" disclosure. This complexity makes it inevitable that the human-equation involved in government servants relative to carelessness or mechanical limitations should occasion the granting of multitudes of "probably" invalid patent claims." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent ================================================================= "The Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) is an international agreement administered by the World Trade Organization (WTO) that sets down minimum standards for many forms of intellectual property (IP) regulation. It was negotiated at the end of the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1994." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agreement_on_Trade-Related_Aspects_of_Intellectual_Property_Rights "There is a trend towards global harmonization of patent laws, with the World Trade Organization (WTO) being particularly active in this area. The TRIPs Agreement has been largely successful in providing a forum for nations to agree on an aligned set of patent laws. Conformity with the TRIPs agreement is a requirement of admission to the WTO and so compliance is seen by many nations as important. This has also led to many developing nations, which may historically have developed different laws to aid their development, enforcing patents laws in line with global practice." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent Regards, Szybowski Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2009 07:57:46 -0700 From: cliffordredus@sbcglobal.net Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Submersible Patent 7,131,389 To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org For those of you wishing to commercialize your psub design, Graham Hawkes was granted a US Patent No. 7,131,389 (www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT7131389) for a personal submersible. There are 89 claims, the first sounding a lot like Alec's original design for Solo which included no ballast tanks and an inverted airfoil to submerge. My guess is that this is more for marketing as it is not a very general patent. Filing date was Jan 22, 2004 and issue date was Nov 7 2006.
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