It's helpful to have people commenting who know what they're talking about. Question: what are some examples of ways that "often you can get around it"?
The scope of the protected invention of a patent is supposed to be defined very precisely by the claims (and indirectly by the specification, procurement history, etc.) If you have a very precise definition of what is protected, you can often find an alternative that is not protected.
Of course, I am speaking in generalities and individual cases may vary, but when people come to me with patent problems I often find a way to avoid a patent.
When non-specialists talk about patents they usually interpret the patent coverage based on the title or the summary, but the actual scope of protection is defined by the claims and it is usually much more narrow than the title suggests.
That reminds me of something I've always wondered. Suppose a patent has claims 1 thru 5. Does an invention have to copy all of them, or only one of them, in order to fall in the scope of the patent? What if you come along with a product that does, say, 1, 2, and 3, but not 4 or 5? Have you infringed the patent? Basically I'm asking whether the implied boolean operator combining the claims is AND or OR.
I expect you'll say what lawyers always say, which is "it depends", but it's my question and I'm sticking with it :)
Heh - no real case, just general curiosity. But if you're still working in this area, you might want to put contact info in your profile. It wouldn't be surprising if someone around here made use of it.
