New Incredible Hulk Gun

[Silence]

Ben, I thought the difference was subjective - I certainly would classify the SS 300 patent as design. I didn't know there was actually an official difference. Thanks for the tip.

Drenchenator, I'm not exactly an expert on the workings of patents, as Ben just proved. You guys would know better. I'm under the impression that you can't infringe on any of the listed claims in a patent - not just all of them at once. That said, all the CPS bladder patents have the special shape qualifier, so sold CPS wouldn't infringe on any of those claims. Please correct me if I'm wrong, because the wrong decision could obviously come back with a vengeance in the form of a lawsuit.

[Ben]

Design patents usually have no claims, just an aesthetic design. I just looked through them to make sure I'm right and for some reason a good deal of the design patent links are broken. I hope Google didn't change their URL structure because I'll have to correct those links then.

I'll look through the CPS patents I've identified sometime tomorrow and pick out the ones that I think would hold up better, print them out, and go through them with a highlighter on Friday when I'm at work. I'll figure out what can and can't be done. Hopefully it'll mean better water guns.

[Drenchenator]

Drenchenator, I'm not exactly an expert on the workings of patents, as Ben just proved. You guys would know better. I'm under the impression that you can't infringe on any of the listed claims in a patent - not just all of them at once. That said, all the CPS bladder patents have the special shape qualifier, so sold CPS wouldn't infringe on any of those claims. Please correct me if I'm wrong, because the wrong decision could obviously come back with a vengeance in the form of a lawsuit.

Well, that's something I'm going to have to ask my dad about. I'm now second guessing what was said before. Patents are tricky, I must say.

[cantab]

I haven't read the CPS patents yet, but I thought most patents were usually full of weasel words and other terms intended to generalise the given design, in an attempt to make the coverage as 'wide' as possible.

[Silence]

Originally Posted by cantab

I haven't read the CPS patents yet, but I thought most patents were usually full of weasel words and other terms intended to generalise the given design, in an attempt to make the coverage as 'wide' as possible.

To some extent, maybe. They try to make things vague and generic in case they want to file a patent infringement lawsuit later on, as Larami did to Ohio Arts. Of course, as that case showed, weasel words don't necessarily convince the jury.

[Drenchenator]

Patents nowadays have turned into right-to-sue strategy, which is the reason why they phrase things so generally. If someone violates a patent by selling the product described in it without permission, they can be sued for millions of dollars.

That said, CPS is in a sort of limbo when it comes to this. Many companies release products that you would think violate the patents (the Water Worm and Speedloader series to name the big two). Both use cylindrical CPS. The Hydra Pak uses spherical CPS. Ohio Art also won the lawsuit against Hasbro over the ARM 4000 XL. But the threat of being sued still exists because the patent still does. I guess it comes down to whether or not Hasbro will fight for it.