AW: copying soft/hard ware

[Haible Juergen]

	>This seems to mean that if you have an idea and develop some
circuit or
	>device from your idea, but someone else has done a similar thing
first and
	>patented the idea - you lose the right to your own idea.

Things like that happen. Even worse, you have an idea, you don't
patent it, but you told another person about it, and he is going to
patent it. If you cannot proove that it was your idea (because it
was not published), you're lost. At least that's how I understand it.
Im no patent attorney either (;->).

	>If the court decides that the design is too similar to the patented
design,
	>is there no way that you can use it despite having no knowledge of
the work
	>of the other person ?

You mean when I "invent" it independently, but later ? No way, IMO.
It's my fault not to know prior art, not the inventor's. 
Hey, a *good* patent does't just claim the actual invention, but also
possible ways "around" it. Speaking of that, the Moog ladder patent
was not "good" because it allowed the use of diodes, as we all know.
So whether your own patent is any good against your competition
has more to to with the skills of your attorney than the brilliance of
your invention.
Another point: Even blatantly infringing someones patent does not 
automatically mean that you're against the law. The holder of the
patent might have no interest in suing you. This was (reportetly) the
case with Moog (filter) and ARP (expo converter), and was also
(reportetly) quite common between certain Japanese companies.
It's not that a 3rd party (or the police, like Don put it) can stand up
and say "x is stealing something from y".

Again, I am no specialist for legal stuff, but that's how I think it works.

JH.