Re: A LEGAL way---maybe!

[Peter Honeyman <honey@citi.umich.edu>]

perhaps you missed my note last week, where i cited:

%T patents and the progress of science: exclusive rights and experimental use
%A rebecca s. eisenberg
%J university of chicago law review
%V 56
%N 3
%D summer 1989
%P 1017-1086

follow the footnotes.  here's a quote to entice you:

  If basic research cannot be insulated from the patent system entirely, it
  might still be possible to reconcile a system of exclusive patent rights in
  prior discoveries with the interest of the scientific community in allowing
  subsequent researchers to enjoy free access to such discoveries by exempting
  the use of patented inventions in research from infringement liability.
  While the United States patent statute does not provide for such an
  exemption, the courts have long recognized, at least in principle, that a
  purely "experimental use" of a patented invention, with no commercial
  purpose, should be exempt from infringement liability.

over and over, she reiterates that patent courts have consistently
recognized the experimental use defense.

	peter