News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Microsoft Accused Of Stealing Kinect From Columbian Inventor. Parent comment

Re:Microsoft Accused Of Stealing Kinect From Columbian Inventor by ig1 on Friday July 15, 2011 @12:07PM (#2767924)
Precisely, unless he can show the PrimeSense guys based their technology upon his then they can use a clean-room defence to get the patent invalidated.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Microsoft Accused Of Stealing Kinect From Columbian Inventor by esrauch on Friday July 15, 2011 @12:10PM (#2767936)
IANAL but I don't think that is how patents work. If person A patents his invention, and person B completely independently invents exactly the same invention without having any knowledge about person A's work, person B still cannot just ignore the patent.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Microsoft Accused Of Stealing Kinect From Columbian Inventor by pedalpete on Friday July 15, 2011 @01:00PM (#2768157)
The PrimeSense patents I found were filed in January of 2008, Hei-D patents weren't filed until March of 2009.

It looks like PrimeSense had the technology first.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Microsoft Accused Of Stealing Kinect From Columbian Inventor by ig1 on Friday July 15, 2011 @12:13PM (#2767953)
No, but B can use the fact that they independently invented it to show that the idea failed to meet the innovation criteria of patents and that what the patents covers is in fact an obvious derivative from existing ideas and get the patent invalidated on that basis.
[ Parent | on HN ]