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Ask HN: Is it possible to ship a physical product without infringing on patents?

5 points by peepeepoopoo3 ↗ HN
I get the sense that it's not possible to build an interesting (non-computer) physical product anymore in the US/EU without accidentally crossing into someone else's patent portfolio. Am I wrong?

7 comments

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mardiyah
What is definition of physical product, and patent portfolio & its infringement in US?
akerl_
The number of new products released every year seems to suggest this is false. What are you basing this sense on?
peepeepoopoo3
I felt this way after participating in patent harvesting sessions at my employer, where they would collect patents from us without ever intending to reduce them to practice (in other words: use them), as well as researching some ideas in my spare time only to find that they were covered by extremely broad non-practiced patents as well.
johncoltrane
That is a strange take.

Do you really believe that everything worthwhile has an enforceable patent attached to it? That there is no room for innovation anymore? You won't ship anything with that attitude, patents or not.

Besides, if you want to use a $THING in your product and I have a patent for it, then we can certainly work out a mutually beneficial deal.

eimrine
> Do you really believe that everything worthwhile has an enforceable patent attached to it?

Isn't it so if to consider patent troll parties as existing?