On 2/7/12 8:03 AM, john@kk9a.com wrote:
> Perhaps this is why the antennas are not for sale?
> http://www.radio-sport.net/ham_lawsuit2011.htm
>
> John KK9A
Interesting..
I'm not sure that the quote in the article has a basis in law.
""An individual is free to make, for his own use, a thing which is
patented by a company without fear of being sued by the patent holder,"
said Heil."
I think it is more a practicality: it's not worth it for a patent holder
to go after someone duplicating the invention for their own exclusive,
non-remunerative use. And failure to pursue such infringers generally
won't allow someone later to raise a defense of laches (i.e. unlike
copyright, patent holders have to pursue all infringers or they lose the
protection). However, if someone patented something, and then someone
else published an article encouraging infringement on a largeish scale,
the patent holder would have to do something. Say someone wrote a QEX
article "Build this antenna" and printed the figures from the patent
(but hadn't actually built it).
I think there is law that allows one to practice an invention in order
to develop a new invention that uses it, in some circumstances. (the
"inventor in the garage" idea)
But one has to be careful. There are plenty of lawsuits about single
uses of biotech patents (gene sequences) in someone's lab where they are
developing something else. That is, they weren't making an infringing
product for sale, just using it in a process.
In any case, just like for copyright, there's no "non-profit use" or
"single use" exception in patent law. In fact, there's nothing
equivalent to "fair use" for patents. I'm pretty sure that a patent
holder can prevent all and sundry from practising the patent, purely on
a whim, if they so desire. (with the possible, use in another invention
exception above)
>
> To:<towertalk@contesting.com>
> Subject: [TowerTalk] HI-Z antennas
> From: "Jorge Diez - CX6VM"<cx6vm.jorge@gmail.com>
> Date: Tue, 7 Feb 2012 12:12:50 -0200
>
>
> Hello,
>
>
>
> Do you know about HI-Z antennas? They told me they are not selling this
> antennas anymore. I was looking for the 4 element array
> http://www.hizantennas.com/controller_4_elements.htm
>
>
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