https://patents.google.com/patent/US20080043317A1/en
https://patents.justia.com/assignee/e-ink-corporation
https://patents.google.com/patent/US6120588A/en (expired)
https://patents.google.com/patent/US20160187759A1/en
An example: https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2018/01/31/meet-the...
I couldn't find a lawsuit referencing either patent. Is there a link you could help provide?
I'm not sure why you find it so hard to believe that the Eink group has created 2000 display patents to use against competitors. At the bottom of that page they say:
> E Ink intends to protect and defend its intellectual and other property worldwide by the means available in various countries.
I tend to believe them.
I guess it is because I work in the display industry and I've never heard them talked about this way within my industry, conferences, symposiums or other peer group events. I've only seen this here on HN and on Boing Boing and some blogs which referenced an HN post making similar claims. I'll try to give you an analogy. Imagine if someone told you Microsoft group has created 2000 software patents to use against competitors and that they intend to defend theier intellectual property. Would you then believe if I told you Microsoft is blocking progress in the software industry? Because that's what the prior post is claiming. Incredible claims ought to at least have some proof or evidence, shouldn't they?
It isn't just a claim though - I pointed to an actual lawsuit. If there was a single eink competitor being used in products outside of China, I would agree with you. TCL claims to have something in the works, so maybe change is coming.
I'd say there are far fewer Microsoft operating system competitors than there are eink competitors. Also eink is an fpl manufacturer not a whole industry. Meaning they're a component supplier and there's tonnes of alternatives, memory-LCD is what I promote, and even within the electrophoretic space, there's ClearInk, Shenzhen Wenfeng, and several others. In any case, it is unclear to me what the main argument is. If you are trying to say eink is blocking progress, then I don't see any evidence for that, and that 2012 lawsuit in fact seems like an entirely reasonable lawsuit since based on what I understand, 2 engineers who had worked for Eink in Boston moved to China, started Guangzhou OED and then produced the exact same pigment and particle formulations and started selling knockoff displays with even the exact same TFT backplanes and resolutions.
Lack of publicly accessible lawsuits doesn't input lawyers of Company X doesn't shot down every single remote competitor preemptively with threats of legal action. At that point possible competitors either won't even try bothering or they'll pay whatever asked and sign a NDA preventing then from disclosing the patents in question (as a common practice on patent litigation deals).
I'm unsure what's with the "spoonfeed" remark, it seems intended to be insulting. As I said, I'm really curious what patent and what lawsuits or similar criminal activity has been done (or from the sound of these comments is being done) by E-Ink. HN people are referring to it in many posts and because I happen to work in the display industry, I'm really surprised. I'd never heard anything like that amongst my peers or during conferences. The main place I've seen this refrain is on HN. Please have a look at my comment history as I keep asking about which patent people are talking about. It is the equivalent of a bunch of my display industry people claiming that Google is blocking search engine progress and then justifying it by giving you a set of Google patents and then shouting, see there's the clear proof that Google is a bad actor. I hope the analogy is clear and that it is also clear why I remain unconvinced about both!
Hmm.. I keep seeing this on HN. I then ask which specific patent and I never get a satisfactory answer. But I'll keep trying. I work in the display industry and am not aware of any specific patent that is blocking progress in developing electrophoretic displays. Are you? If yes, please please point out which specific patent and how it is blocking your design.