My understanding is - the copyright holder must aggressively defend his rights or risk losing them. That's why we are seeing so many frivolous law suits.

A famous pizza chain was recently sued for singing the Happy Birthday Song to children. I believe it's still under copyright protection (or was at the time).

I truly think the law has exceeded it's intent. It's easier to satisfy "aggressive defense" by suing a "little guy" than to become mired in the courts with the "big guns" for years.

I once sought a patent, the Patent Attorney said that suing for infringement could ruin me financially. I backed away.

Forrest Mims III, inventor of the LED, spent virtually millions of Loonies aggressively defending it, eventually ruining him.

In the Discovery Phase, agents would come in the middle of the night and conduct "legal search and seizure" of his research documents. He eventually won against Monsanto and Bell Labs but he was a broken man. Read his story in his riveting book: "Siliconnections".

"We don't need no steenking Gastappo!"

Addendumb: Purists may argue that the LED (Light Emitting Diode) was more a discovery than an invention.

Forrest Mims III determined that photons of light jumped across a PN junction of a semiconductor diode as it rectified Alternating Current. He proved his theory and the LED was born (invented/discovered).

His knowledge (suspicion) of the existence of the photon phenomenon puts him more in the inventor side in my mind, although a moot point.

Last edited by Don Gaynor; 05/24/15 07:27 AM.
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