So say I wanted to sell something...

Do you have a patent on the material your skull is made from? Do it, now! You've already blown your European patent rights.

I'm sure, but you certainly don't understand "commercial gain".

Yes, you are if you're selling a product that advocates infringement on a patent. I suggest you don't tread here.

Building a patented circuit is not an infringement. Neither is selling the parts that are needed to build it.

robert

Of course not, but I can legally build patented stuff for my own use. Does it make a difference if I buy a kit?

robert

--- Yes. If you buy a kit of parts with instructions on how to assemble them so that the end result would be equivalent to a patented invention then, IMO, the producer of the kit would clearly be guilty of "actively inducing infringement" if the kit weren't licensed by the owner of the patent.

If you bought that kit knowing that the end result of assembling it would yield an illegal copy of a protected invention and your only interest in the device would be to use it in an ordinary way without having to pay the owner of the patent his just dues, then you'd be guilty of infringing the patent. The only way building a patented invention without having to pay the patent owner his just dues is permissible is if the device is built in order to study it. If the intent is merely to use it in an ordinary way in order to keep from having to pay the owner of the patent his just dues, that's not permissible, is infringement, and is illegal.

-- John Fields Professional Circuit Designer

On Thu, 25 May 2006 08:50:57 -0500, John Fields wrote in Msg.

That's interesting. Let's look at that URL and see what constitutes an a patent infringement:

(a) [...] whoever without authority makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells any patented invention [...] infringes the patent.

What does this mean?

1. Getting a copy of a patented circuit is legal.
2. Buying the required parts from a distributor is legal.
3. Assembling the circuit is legal.
4. Using the finished device is illegal.

I just skimmed over the quite convoluted rest of the text and, to my surprise, could not find any limitation to the term "to use" in paragraph (a). Which means that your assertion:

isn't even covered.

And as far as supplying a kit goes:

(f) (1) Whoever without authority supplies [...] all or a substantial portion of the components of a patented invention, where such components are uncombined in whole or in part, in such manner as to actively induce the combination of such components outside of the United States in a manner that would infringe the patent if such combination occurred within the United States, shall be liable as an infringer.

The whole "Inside outside USA" rigmarole aside, from this paragraph we can learn two things:

1. The "combination of such components" alone (not even their use) can infringe a patent.

1. Supplying the parts alone seems to be only an infringement if they are supplied to people outside the US.

So it seems, although the point is probably moot. I want to see a single person who has ever been sued for building one or two instances of a patented invention for his own, private -- or even commercial -- use.

robert