Originally Posted by
o2bad455
Be careful not to compare the two patents. The question is NOT whether one patent is more detailed or has broader claims than the other. The real questions include: A) Do ANY of Escort's (or Bel's?) products infringe the claims of the Cobra patent; and B) Do ANY of Cobra's products infringe the claims of the Escort patent. It's arguable in both cases, but I would hazard a guess that they are each infringing each other's patents. Normally, businesses in this situation form an agreement not to sue each other. Here, for whatever reasons, they may actually take it to court. Would Escort like to put Cobra out of business? Perhaps. Should we also want Cobra out of business, if only so we could have fewer false alerts caused by their leaky products? I would argue that we should NOT, as more competition is always better for the consumer in the long run.
The next question is whether the patents are overly broad based on the prior art (that is, did the patent office really consider the most pertinent prior art, and if so, did each patent examiner do a good and thorough job with it). Considering the huge siphoning of patent office fees by the Bush administration for unrelated purposes, it's quite possible that the examiners weren't given enough resources or support to do the best job. Can other prior art be found that would tend to invalidate either or both patents? I don't know the answers there, but I'm sure that both Escort and Cobra have ideas about it (otherwise I'd think that they would have already found some way to settle out of court, or they still might).
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