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What to do after a patent is discovered?

4 points by markkudlac ↗ HN
I began developing an adtech product about 6 months ago after checking the USPTO and finding nothing that I was infringing on. Recently I discovered a patent granted to Yahoo in the beginning of June that describes my product exactly. I am not sure what to do now. Any recommendations on a course of action would be appreciated.

7 comments

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smooty69
3/16/2013 the rule "first inventor to file (FITF)" was put in place, you are out of luck and now infringing on Yahoo's patent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_to_file_and_first_to_inve...
BWStearns
IANAL, but I was under the impression that prior art can invalidate a patent even with FITF if it wasn't an issue of contesting the ownership of the patent, since an invention has to be novel and publicly disclosed prior art would mean that the patent was issued invalidly rather than issued to the wrong inventor.
Alex-Galapagos
You need to get a pattern attorney and ask. Basically if you word it differently and describe it differently then it's a different product
petervandijck
Your smart patent laywer might say: delete this post asap.

If you KNOW you're infringing a patent, it's MUCH worse than if you're infringing without knowing. That's why it can be better to not do patent searches.

zeeed
this. and do get a patent attorney asap so that you don't run the risk of having worked in vain.