Patent investigation could force hard drives off US market
By Nilay Patel 
posted October 11th 2007 7:15PM
posted October 11th 2007 7:15PM
This one's still a ways off, but the International Trade Commission has just launched a patent investigation into five manufacturers that could result in a ban on hard drive imports if the agency finds evidence of infringement. The patents, which are owned by Californians Steven and Mary Reiber, cover a method of using "ceramic bonding tips" on the internal wiring of the drives, and the couple claims Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba, Hewlett-Packard, and Dell have all infringed by importing the drives. Much like the Qualcomm case, the ITC has a variety of ways of dealing with the situation and the parties have a lot of methods of appeal, but products that infringe on US patents are barred from being imported, so this initial determination will set off a lot of dominoes when it gets made in 45 days. Details are still pretty sketchy on what exactly the ITC is investigating, but we'll definitely keep you updated as we get more info.Disclaimer: Although this post was written by an attorney, it is not meant to be legal advice or analysis and should not be taken as such.
Between music copyrights and patent infringement suits, this country is becoming pretty pathetic. If you want to screw up the entire economy and get blamed for the US falling back into the stone age, be my guest.
Our country is filled with selfish assholes.
I agree.
Selfish people like the ones who run the companies who are stealing other people's ideas and making a profit on them.
And selfish people like you who want everything for free.
I am a strong advocate of dropping the copyright term back.
If you spend you time, money, and life developing something and patent it, it's protected for 20 years from the filing date.
If you spend a few months writing a song, book, or drawing something, then its likeness is protected in every way imaginable (can't even make derivative works) into perpetuity.
Something is messed up there.
Disclaimer: Yes, but how long is considered perpetuity? Your life plus 75 years? What about when they (Disney) pays Congress to extend it again? Your life plus 100 year? Where are we going to stop it?
http://www.google.com/patents?id=cIgJAAAAEBAJ&dq=%22ceramic+bonding+tips%22
The patent was issued in 2002. How can you sue for patent infringement when the process/product has been used for years...? Everyone!!, open up your computers,tv's, everything!, patent what you can. Then sue sue sue.
Hard Drives: The Next Cuban Cigar
I just ordered 3000 hard drives of all different sizes. Now, you think I'm crazy...in 2 months, I'll be a millionaire!
Seriously though, this could suck. I'm in the market for at least 3-4 new drives that I won't be able to buy for another month or 2. If they prices jump right as I'm about to buy them, I may be slightly mad.
Time to change the system right now.
since they state the range as follows.
"For best results, a resistance in the tip assembly itself should range from 105 to 1012 ohms."
patent avoided - lets move on people - this is from 2000 and issued in 2002 - since bulk prices for hdd's are ridiculously low (multi container loads) I don't think it's going to take that much time to bypass this - because industrial designers would have figured out the best ohms to use for their particular mechanisms - this is a OBVIOUS thing - any company with a decent QC would have investigated failed hdd's insanely.
Look at the citations - and after reading through the long list of RANGES - how many people had to work on this to arrive at the final conclusions? did they just analyze the patents of others regarding techniques of soldering and the ranges and the most efficient materials?
Did they even mfg the drives using this method? Did SJM Technologies have the ability to demonstrate this process? whose hardware did they use to arrive at their conclusions? is SJM Technologies a mfg of a ceramic bonding tip?
What a strange patent - everyone on Engadget should be patenting processes that they find in their every day routine - ANYTHING - just patent it and put in a little line that says this patent has a royalty of 1¢ per incidence.
Does this Dissipative Ceramic Bonding Tip send NASA to hell as well? I'm pretty sure they've been using this technology to make sure the shuttles innards survive all those g forces!
There's so many ranges in this patent - I didn't know that you could be given a patent when there are hardly any especially specific points used - and how do you narrow down your list of mfg's? how long did they spend finding out what companies used what tips and decided that those were the ones to be named?
Will somebody patent taking a shit a specific way and from that day forward we will have to shit sideways or pay a royalty?
Oh well - let's move on - I'm wasting electrons on this...
Yea.. even if this were to be found to be true, I'm pretty sure that banning the import of HARD DRIVES into the US would seriously fuck up our economy and would never be ALLOWED to happen. Patents be damned. Hard drives are such an integral part of everything we do that we literally cannot function without them.
retard. attorneys created patents like wall street created stocks. games for non-professionals to play so that "professionals" can make a living.
Strange that they could even apply for a patent. In the rest of the world a patent is not granted when the technology in question has been used for more than 12 months by another company or when that technology becomes so widely used that it becomes the industry standard. From what I gather they were extremely general in their patent application. Not good for them. But then again the American government isn't too keen on thinking things through. So the companies will try for a work-around to bypass the technology described in their patent application. Look at the recent China debacle.
Nilay, stop blowing your own trumpet and writing that stupid disclaimer at the end of a lot of your posts! No one would ever see this as even remotely legal advice or analysis. you write it on so many posts that merely mention laws or patents and it really frustrates me that you're writing it. it's so amateurish.
Disclaimer: Although this post was not written by an attorney, it is meant to be legal advice or analysis and should definitely be taken as such.
Sure I'll stop, except that I'll have to forward the bill to you when some investor loses money because he followed my legal analysis and decides to sue.
In my understanding, he has to write that in order to keep the Bar Association at bay and to avoid someone, stupid or not, from saying "but a lawyer said this!" at some point in a court proceeding.
does this mean my kids doodle pad is doomed as well?