🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Aug19.224908.11164@cs.su.oz.au> Carl Oppedahl <0001811496@mcimail.com> writes:
>Gregory Aharonian (srctran@world.std.com) writes:
>>I haven't looked closely, but I suspect many of these
>>were due to small businesses and individuals not having the money to
>>maintain their patents, for one commercial reason or another.
> 
>No, that's not quite right.  By definition if the patent happens to have
>worked out well (i.e. is making lots of money for the owner) then the owner
>_does_ have the money to maintain it, and indeed has no difficulty
>deciding to spend a small portion of the money on the maintenance fee.
>This is so regardless of the owner happening to be an individual or
>small business.  On the other hand, if the owner has not paid the
>maintenance fee due to lack of money, then by definition the patent
>must not have worked out well (i.e. has not made money for the owner).

This simple logic ignores the possibility that the patent owner could
have made *lots* of money on the patent in question, but lost his shirt
on other business ventures.  Of course you could argue that forgetting
to "feed his golden goose" was bad business, and I would agree, but it
wouldn't be the first time that a business took a gamble and lost.  Not
paying renewal fees doesn't necessarily mean the patent in question
wasn't a money maker.  There could be (*are*) other factors at work.

>On behalf of clients I regularly monitor patents owned by particular
>large companies, and every week I see some patents owned by large
>companies (who have lots and lots of money) expiring due to failure to
>pay maintenance fees.  Obviously for them the decision not to pay the
>fee was not lots of money, but rather a simple business decision.

Or they could just be too disorganized!

All of your conclusions are based on the assumption that businesses
*always* act rationally, don't take risks, are *completely* under
control, and *always* pay attention!  In my experience, this just isn't
so.

-hans
-- 
  Hans-Gabriel Ridder				Digital DECwest Engineering
  ridder@rust.zso.dec.com			Bellevue, Washington, USA
  {pacbell,pyramid,uunet}!rust.zso.dec.com!ridder