Former patent examiner here. One problem I've seen time and time again with respect to patents on Hacker News is that people don't read the patent claims, the legally enforceable part of a patent. They just assume that because some journalist or blogger or attorney or whatnot says that this patent covers something, it must cover all instances of that. And that would be a big problem, preventing people from using a technology that should be available to the public. But the reality often is that what the patent covers is quite narrow. Yes, mistakes happen in granting patents, but not as frequently as people here seem to think.
Example of this phenomena on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30387833
The claims there don't cover as much as people think they do! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30388857
While I've never been involved on the litigation side of patents, if I received an email like this, I'd ask for not only the patent numbers but also a detailed "mapping" of how my product is infringing. The mapping is what I had to do as a patent examiner. Just show how my product infringes on the claims. That's what would have to be done in court, after all.
If they claim
A widget consisting of 3 bars.
and my product has 4 bars [0] then I'm not infringing!
[0] "Consisting of" in patents means exactly. If they said "comprising" then 4 bars would infringe as they could point to any 3 of the 4. You need to know a little legalese, sure, but it's not hard.
Example of this phenomena on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30387833
The claims there don't cover as much as people think they do! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30388857
While I've never been involved on the litigation side of patents, if I received an email like this, I'd ask for not only the patent numbers but also a detailed "mapping" of how my product is infringing. The mapping is what I had to do as a patent examiner. Just show how my product infringes on the claims. That's what would have to be done in court, after all.
If they claim
and my product has 4 bars [0] then I'm not infringing![0] "Consisting of" in patents means exactly. If they said "comprising" then 4 bars would infringe as they could point to any 3 of the 4. You need to know a little legalese, sure, but it's not hard.