Rifle Scopes Patented Reticle a Question

[wadebrown]

I have always wondered how someone can patent a reticle and how easy it would be to work around it.

First why I wonder how you can patent a reticle: A reticle is essentially just a measuring device not unlike a ruler many of the patented ones are rulers in two dimensions (Christmas trees). The hashes on the reticle maybe 0.1 milliradian apart no different than a ruler's smallest hashes being 1/16 of an inch.

Why I think a work around is trivial: The patents I have seen are just a diagram with the measurements defined, it would seem a slight alteration would not be a patent violation and the new reticle would function in the same way.

I believe the same is true about cartridge design, I was in Bill's Guns in Minneapolis and they had wildcatted the WSM by necking it up to 50 cal. I round intrigued me as you could run it subsonic and low-supersonic delivering a large amount of energy. The guy I was talking to said the only place I could get a gun chambered in that round (I forget the cute name they assigned to it) was to go through them as they had the round patented. I told the guy all I have to do is call up Kiff and order a reamer wait a couple of weeks (years back when this was true) and get a barrel blank and walk over to my lathe and build a 50 cal based off of the WSM. The guy got angry with me saying I was stealing business from them, I don't think they even had a lathe to chamber their "patented" round, I told him I only do these projects for myself I am not in the business of building guns for sale. Finally I said if I believed his patent had merit all I had to do was shorten the case by a few thousands and it is a whole different design.

I have no problem with people trademarking the names they apply to products like this, but find patents hard to understand. I do have to admit I have a couple of patents that are silly, but Lockheed wanted to capture the IP and they would give me bonus money to write them up so I did it.

wade

 

[Trigger Monkey]

Like patenting a bubble level embedded in a chassis and then threatening your customer base with patent infringement if they buy from someone else.

 

[Rocketmandb]

I've written and been issued a number of patents - unfortunately all for companies I've worked for. In the US, a patent technically prohibits individuals from making and using a "widget" for personal use. However, what is a patent holder going to do about it? Are they going to sue you to stop using something you spent your own time/money to build? The answer is no. To get damages, the company would have to prove that the individual caused harm by infringing, and that the individual knowingly infringed. What harm could be caused? The cost of making/selling the one device the individual is using? It would cost many times the cost of that device to litigate.

There is a reason why patent litigation is rare. Patent holders more often go to infringing companies and threaten litigation in order to get licensing fees. It makes no sense at all to sue individuals for patent infringement - again, primarily because you have to prove that they knowingly infringed to get any damages, and the damages would be limited to the one unit the individual made/used.