Guy Claims His Patent Covers Everyone Making Computers, Cell Phones, Hard Drives, DVD Players, HDTV & MRIs
from the you-probably-infringe-just-for-breathing dept
Joe Mullin has been digging into the saga of Gregory Bender -- a guy no one seems to know anything about, but who just a few weeks ago started suing some big name companies, such as Broadcom, Freescale, AMD and National Semiconductor for patent infringement. A week later, he had also sued IBM, Agilent, Cirrus Logic, Siemens, Nokia, Sony, Motorola, and ST Microelectronics. Apparently that wasn't enough, as a week later, he filed new lawsuits against AT&T, AT&T Mobility, Sony-Ericsson, Panasonic, Samsung, Toshiba, Hitachi, Seagate and Western Digital. At latest count, in the last month or so, he's filed 22 lawsuits against 28 different companies.The patent in question? It's for a buffered transconductance amplifier, and Bender is claiming that basically all computers, mobile phones, hard drives, DVD players, HDTVs and MRI machines violate the patents. Bender may or may not have a valid claim... but the patent was granted in 1992, and it appears it will expire at the beginning of August, so it's not entirely clear why Bender waited until now to sue -- or what he's been doing with his life in the interim. Mullin's questions concerning that were answered with a: "He is a private person. He does not want publicity." Then, perhaps he shouldn't have sued pretty much every high tech company out there claiming they owe him money...
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Filed Under: greg bender, patents
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Because now he can sue all these companies and walk away with more money than a lottery winner.
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I doubt he will get very far.
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Interesting...
Mike's question regarding why he waited this long is an extremely valid question. There are two issues here.
First, you can only claim royalties going back six years.
Second, since the value of these electronics have gone down, the amount of the royalties will be substantially less per unit than they would have been a decade ago.
Third, I suspect that he will have to explain why he waited so long to sue. His patent has existed for nearly 20 years. All of the defendants will argue estoppel because of the length of time his "invention" has been practiced.
Of course, any of the defendants could pretty much stop this litigation in its tracks by requesting a re-examination of the patent. Most courts will halt litigation until the re-examination is complete, which would delay litigation for years.
Will he get very far? I do not know. However, he has put himself in a position where his chances of success have been significantly reduced because of his failure to act.
Incidentally, he let his patent expire when the third maintenance fee became due. He petitioned the USPTO to accept the late maintenance fee because "the dog ate his homework." Just kidding. He says that his computer fell victim to Y2K, and then it got a virus. He though he had all his important dates added to his calendar, but missed this one. You can guarantee that defendants will make use of that little tidbit as well.
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Re: Interesting...
>long is an extremely valid question.
How about he really needs some money and asked a patent lawyer if his patent was worth anything. The lawyers go nuts and the guy looks like an idiot. Just a guess mind you but someone could get a movie out of this.
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Maybe, but who would put out on DVD once this lawsuit halts DVD Player production? :)
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Re: Interesting...
He was a very nice person. Lawyers wanted him to act. Lawsuits are not in everyone's blood. It affects your life negatively (these are engineers, remember).
Not sure what was his deal. He did have great plans for using the money to improve the technology infrastructure of the country where he was born. He also planned to fund a one person company he owned which was prototyping (with very inexpensive parts) some products to cater to the electronic hobbyist. He was on top of the state of the art (as well as you can be when you don't work in special labs) in a number of tech disciplines. He loved to spend the day on engineering. Did I mention he was a nice guy?
Perhaps not everyone that takes out a patent feels good about it afterwards. After all, no man is an island. Is having an idea a few months or years or seconds before anyone else worth a 20 year monopoly on the general concept or worth a guaranteed income stream? And to add insult to injury, a patent writer likely is not the first person to think fully of the particular invention, but merely the first person to file for a patent on it.
Having waited so long, likely didn't help either. The fear of change and of ensuing court battles may have also played a part. Finally, one probably expects to have the media's (and new well-funded enemy's) cynical microscope placed on your life. People that don't live normal lifestyles can get extra apprehensive about the inevitable public focus that would ensue.
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I know where he's been!
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Props to Patents
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This also explains why there's so little information about him, because he has not exited in our time-line for several years.
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The problem I have with waiting so long is what I stated above. Sales of these devices peaked and then declined. Also, the relative value of his design has decreased because the price of all these devices has declined. He also waited too long. I see a lot of questions being asked that may lead to him getting nothing.
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No WAY
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Re: No WAY
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retards as usual
if a patented feature is buried inside a very complex high-tech device (like cell phone) it is vurtually impossible for one guy with no resources to reverse-engineer the device to find infringment
I can only guess which company out there infringes my patent (unless somebody on the inside tips me...)
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Re: retards as usual
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Re: Re: retards as usual
Tell us about your extra chromosome, angry dude. While you're at it, tell us all about ALL YOUR INVENTIONS!!! You talk about them so much but never seem willing to actually describe them.
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Re: retards as usual
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Re: retards as usual
Especially since it's imaginary and exists only in your little mind.
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Direct ripoff of Comlinear Corporation work
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current-feedback_operational_amplifier
You may have to splice the url.
Bender does not have anything original in his core idea. I did not wade through all the claims.
Steve
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Re: Direct ripoff of Comlinear Corporation work
I didn't either. When I saw his claim that his amplifier had "no slew" I decided that he was probably full of kaka and didn't read much further.
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Re: Re: Direct ripoff of Comlinear Corporation work
Current feedback op amps are one of those paradigm changing things. They act very similar from the outside in a lot of ways, and quite differently in some details.
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Re: Re: Re: Direct ripoff of Comlinear Corporation work
Only using imaginary ideal components, which do not exist. You could build also build perpetual motion machines if you had imaginary ideal components. But in reality, you can't. So this guy's claim of having invented an amplifier with zero slew is obviously bunk. And the patent office didn't even catch it. Of course people have gotten patents for other similarly impossible things, like faster-than-light warp engines for spaceships, so that's no real surprise.
Practically, it is quite high, far higher than voltage feedback amps.
Far higher than voltage feedback amps, true, but still very far from infinity.
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Gregory's playing Russian Roulette with the judicial system, throwing out a pistol and seeing who ends up shooting themselves with it. Here's hoping he gets laughed out of court.
And if that poster above me is indeed Gregory; Just because you got a patent on something you didn't invent, don't market, and only have to suck money out of it doesn't mean you get to sue every company out there just in case they may be infringing on your bogus patent.
"my little retarded friends,"
You're not one to talk.
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for your information patents are property
there is no law requiring you to market your invention
also, judges do not like fishing expeditions - you gotta have a pretty solid case of infringement otherwise no litigator will take your case - the court can sanction plaintiff attorneyes for lack of due diligence
YOu are sitting at the kiddie table tonight, punk
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Never learns anything, but you miss him when he's gone.
Welcome back.
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there is no law requiring you to market your invention
I thought the entire purpose of the patent system was to give incentive to creators to invent something for the betterment of society by giving them a temporary monopoly. If you invent something and sit on it, or worse, use it to stop *others* from bringing the invention to the market, then you're clearly acting counter to the entire purpose of the system.
So, hiding behind the patent system to pressure (or outright take) money from other businesses that you have no sensible claim to is a perversion of the entire system, and is what gives the patent system the appearance of being broken.
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Plz no feed the troll
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i'm just playing the long con
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more info
The lawsuit Bender vs. Texas Instruments was filed back in 2006 and it was SETTLED
A pretty strong indication of patent validity
You can kiss Mikey's stinking ass all you want but we have laws in this country (so far at least)
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Re: more info
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Re: more info
I can't find any details on Google. Only that he sued, nothing about settling.
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How to steal inventions?
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This is why I...
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and then AD is adsent and WH appears.
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Joe Bender
Actually, the transconductance amplifier (buffered or not) has been around longer than anyone you know, except me - and when I built my first one, it was already old.
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Gregory Bender Patent Infringement
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