Machine Vision Patents Thrown Out

Mike AI · 01-26-2004

http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/04/01/27/02222...&tid=155&tid=99

Machine Vision Patents Thrown Out

Posted by timothy on Monday January 26, @09:31PM
from the opens-fine-with-abiword dept.
chalker writes "Cognex Corporation, the world's leading supplier of machine vision systems, announced today that the U.S. District Court in Las Vegas has ruled in favor of Cognex in its lawsuit against the Lemelson Medical, Education & Research Foundation. It held that the claims of 14 patents asserted by Lemelson are invalid and unenforceable , and not infringed by Cognex. Co-plantiffs included barcode reader manufacturers Symbol Technologies, Accu-sort Systems, and Zebra Technologies amongst others. These patents were classic "submarine" patents orginally applied for in 1954, but tied up in the patent office and changed over the next four decades to cover changes taking place in the machine vision field. Lemelson had threatened to sue numerous end-users, including Motorola and Ford, over the past two decades and had settled all of them out of court for over $1.5 billion in licensing fees. For once a judge has seen how ridiculous our patent system is."

01-26-2004	#1
Mike AI Administrator Want to see your own Advertising Here! Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 11,618	http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/04/01/27/02222...&tid=155&tid=99 Machine Vision Patents Thrown Out Posted by timothy on Monday January 26, @09:31PM from the opens-fine-with-abiword dept. chalker writes "Cognex Corporation, the world's leading supplier of machine vision systems, announced today that the U.S. District Court in Las Vegas has ruled in favor of Cognex in its lawsuit against the Lemelson Medical, Education & Research Foundation. It held that the claims of 14 patents asserted by Lemelson are invalid and unenforceable , and not infringed by Cognex. Co-plantiffs included barcode reader manufacturers Symbol Technologies, Accu-sort Systems, and Zebra Technologies amongst others. These patents were classic "submarine" patents orginally applied for in 1954, but tied up in the patent office and changed over the next four decades to cover changes taking place in the machine vision field. Lemelson had threatened to sue numerous end-users, including Motorola and Ford, over the past two decades and had settled all of them out of court for over $1.5 billion in licensing fees. For once a judge has seen how ridiculous our patent system is." __________________ Make big money on your Domains! Why wait 40 days to get paid with the other guys? Parked.com pays the most for your traffic, and cuts checks twice a month!