I'm going to tick off some patent owners. :P
>
> 1) Patent owners are not god and see everything everywhere.
> Play the odds...There's a good chance of never being discovered.
> 2) Some copied tech can be epoxy encapsulated. Is a patent owner
> going to spend days picking away at epoxy to see if it's a copy?
> Maybe filing off chip numbers will help.
> 3) Deny copying the patent.. I didn't make that! :)
> Be a non-existent, unregistered, unlicensed company.
> 4) Find out if the patent owner is poor.. Most likely the person is
> too broke for a patent legal battle.
> 5) Avoid mass production of the copied patent.
> 6) Have the copied patent made overseas. Have it disguised as another
> product when it's imported.
> 7) Maybe improve or degrade the patent so that's it's different.
> 8) Don't release schematics. Maybe have fake schematics too.
> 9) If you're not making much money on the copied patent.. You think
> you'll get sued over a few hundred dollars of profit?
> 10) Go ahead copy away..When discovered, perhaps make a deal with the
> patent owner for licensing and paying back royalties.. There might be
> enough profit to go around.
> If the patent owner is greedy, then layoff everybody, liquidate the
> company and start all over again by copying somebody else's patent.
> 11) Have you heard of any stories of people going to jail for patent
> infringement?
> 12) Get ready to mass produce the patent just before the patent
> expires.
> D from BC
These days there is another option: just re-patent the invention yourself. It used to be that you could not patent something that has already been patented, but the USPTO no longer lets such small details get in the way of increasing throughput and collecting more fees. e.g. 5796296 Any problems that this new approach introduces will surely be sorted out in an efficient, fair, and above all cost effective way, by the usual litigation process.
Once you have your shiny new patent, you just need to sue the original inventor until he runs out of money and then the invention is yours!
Chris