There is no evidence that Square viewed and copied this dude's "novel invention".
Re:My Own Patent Apologies (2014)
by URSpider94 on Monday December 21, 2015 @08:19PM
(#10774978)
You're misreading parent's comment. What s/he is saying is that if someone flat-out copied your design, then that would presumably be trade secret appropriation.
Patents are SUPPOSED to cover the case where someone else invents the same thing in parallel, independently. You might not like it, but that's a legal fact. Clearly, you have a different moral opinion of when someone should be able to enforce their patent rights.
Re:My Own Patent Apologies (2014)
by monochromatic on Monday December 21, 2015 @10:23PM
(#10775604)
Yes, thank you for putting that more clearly than I did.
Is it still considered a quirk when it's by design and it's the entire point of the system? If we're only talking about damages for when designs are copied (instead of independently developed), we're basically talking about trade secret misappropriation.