Ultra Products sues almost every PSU manufacturer

[Chimerical]

An example of a patent would be the Nintendo Wii Nuchuck/GameCube/N64 etc. analogue stick, which sits within an octagonal shaped hole in the plastic controller.

Nintendo

Sony


PS3 and Xbox controller analogue sticks sit in purely circular shaped holes because Nintendo patented the ridged design.

Basically, patents don't exclusively give the rights to develop a certain tool to a certain company, like say a suitcase, or a fridge, but they can patent the different ways in which that tool can be applied, so modular PSU's are a different way of achieving the same thing.

 

[prosser13]

Seen this thread on a few forums and it always starts off with people blasting Ultra, and then being told the full facts.

Note that there are some companies not being sued - Enermax spring to mind as one of the bigger ones. My guess is that Ultra would have sent out letters of cease and desist with an option to pay licence payments...if they didn't, this case is going to get thrown out pretty quickly.

Another note - the "modular" PSU designs which has been mentioned in this thread only offered shorter cables...there would be three or four cables coming out of the PSU, being the ATX ones and some molex ones, and then included in the bundle would be a bunch of molex splitters/extenders, molex to SATA, etc. Therefore, Ultra who released the first 'modular' PSU in 2004 can't be blamed for stealing the idea

 

[Werewolf]

granted 2006? I am sure there is plenty of prior art from before then, that should be sufficient to get the case thrown out.

The US Patent system is a joke, hugely understaffed and backlogged and a lot of those dealing with them have the technical knowledge of a teaspoon.

That is my thoughts, pretty much exactly.

Any prior "art" (examples basically) would invalidate the patent, hence why most companies don't even utter a word of a new idea until they've been to the patent lawyers.

If the company mentioned earlier can show an old version of their site from before the patent was granted to Ultra for example, that would invalidate the patent.

As you say the US patent system is a joke these days, from memory they have had a massive increase in the number of new patents, whilst cutting back on the staff that are meant to check on them, with the result that it's going to the courts to be sorted rather than just refused straight off.

I beleive there was a patent "pending" a year or two back for something that had been demonstrated originally on an Altair, but a company had decided to try and patent it in about 2003 (20-30 years after it had been demonstrated).

 

[crazyDAJT]

there are three types of people who actually bother wit patenting an idea

the incredibly switched on individual with funds to burn
the incredibly stupid with funds to burn
large cooperations, with funds to burn, who depend on Patents, Pharmaceutics are a good example.

as stated, if there are any examples in the open, the Patent should not stand, plenty of company's shove new ideas out of the door, then said "we should have Patented that", to late