Submarine patent

A submarine patent is colloquially a patent which is rather unknown at the beginning and is not defended by the patentee. In this phase, the patented process (possibly even by the patentee ) is integrated into a standard. Once the standard has established the patentee is asserting itself in the assumption that it would be more expensive for those affected to replace the standard than to pay the royalties.

Practically, the nowadays but set limits because (due to negative experiences with submarine patents ) participants in standardization bodies must now be contracted usually announce their relevant patent applications and patents. For this, however, the patent owner must be members of standardization committees. Also, patent applications are published 18 months after the application automatically, so that they where a patent is a searchable patent database are found ( such as in public esp @ cenet ). Only in the USA could be passed unpublished alive until a few years ago a patent application for years or even decades.

Example

CompuServe and Unisys is alleged to have these tactics at the LZW algorithm, which is used in GIF format applied. ( The patents on the LZW algorithm of these companies have now expired. Too, another patent, which was granted by a failure of the U.S. Patent Office by IBM to the algorithm, but probably was invalid because of the previously granted Unisys patent from the start, is now extinct. The LZW algorithm is thus now freely available. )