pumpernickel

First of all I am a patent lawyer and I don't do product liability litigation and my exposure to this side of the law dates back to law school, so I am sure the following may be laden with errors. BillVan brings up an interesting hypothetical regarding laser guided cruise control: is it forseeable that someone with the cruise control on will back into another car on the road? - I think w/o a doubt the answer is yes. Is it Ford's duty to protect Bill from doing so with the laser guided cruise control? I don't know, probably for a jury to decide. But what if Toyota has the patent on the laser cruise control and absolutely will not license the technology to others so as to maintain a competitive advantage? Not much Ford can do then b/c no one can make Toyota license a patent to its competitor (sort of). I wonder how different this case would have turned out if Saw Stop wanted to be its own manufacturer from the get go refusing to share its technology. Perhaps the terms of the licensing agreement were so egregious that no one was able to enter into a licensing agreement, which would be tantamount to refusing to license to anyone. As with all legal questions, the devil is in the details of each case.

Spoken like a true attorney - I wrote a whole paragraph not answering a single question, rather presenting 3 more than we originally had.

First of all I am a patent lawyer and I don't do product liability litigation and my exposure to this side of the law dates back to law school, so I am sure the following may be laden with errors. BillVan brings up an interesting hypothetical regarding laser guided cruise control: is it forseeable that someone with the cruise control on will back into another car on the road? - I think w/o a doubt the answer is yes. Is it Ford's duty to protect Bill from doing so with the laser guided cruise control? I don't know, probably for a jury to decide. But what if Toyota has the patent on the laser cruise control and absolutely will not license the technology to others so as to maintain a competitive advantage? Not much Ford can do then b/c no one can make Toyota license a patent to its competitor (sort of). I wonder how different this case would have turned out if Saw Stop wanted to be its own manufacturer from the get go refusing to share its technology. Perhaps the terms of the licensing agreement were so egregious that no one was able to enter into a licensing agreement, which would be tantamount to refusing to license to anyone. As with all legal questions, the devil is in the details of each case.

Spoken like a true attorney - I wrote a whole paragraph not answering a single question, rather presenting 3 more than we originally had.