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© Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.U.S. trade officials to probe Toyota patent claim
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bdiego
Patents are international by the Berne Convention which all these countries including Japan have signed. Russia and China are notable exceptions. I don't have any comment as far as the merits of this case, just pointing that out. Personally, the patent system is broken and constantly abused.
Klein2
Toyota was locked out of a consortium of US companies developing hybrid technology during the Clinton years. They have been basically going it alone since then. I have old textbooks and magazines from the 1970s and 1980s showing what Japanese carmakers were doing with hybrids then. To say that the Japanese were leading the pack is a gross understatement. Hybrid, hmmm...well, let's just say it is pre-Doraemon technology.
Gee, I wish Toyota had shown the drive, ingenuity, and ambition of GM or what is it? Paice? The world would be such better place.
rgetty
Its about time! the Japanese have been stealing patents for years and im glad to see we are finally taking a stand. The US companies spend over 1 billion many years ago developing hybrid technology, then the Japanese started to get nervous and started making them. The Americans didn't put it to use because of the same reason as other, it was to costly, but when you are a Japanese company and have access to free money you dont really care about that, its all about market share. Time to pay up Toyota!
Badsey
This is a USPTO case and the patent judge will rule on it. They believe they are exercising their right "to exclude others" from their intellectual property. That is the law and that is what a patent provides. Nothing more -Nothing less.
PepinGalarga
if a patent was filed in the US, most likely it was also filed in Japan. How interesting it would be to see how the IP rights of Paice would be protected in Japan, or if they would be steamrolled.
sharky1
It would be less costly for Toyota to try and negotiate a settlement rather than going through a potential damaging probe.
Tatanka
Paice LLC is a patent troll. They don't have the money to launch an ITC legal challenge to the Toyota patents.
gogogo
Patenting is a business of sueing
nath
Pay off time.
timorborder
With the word going "eco" crazy, there are not going to be any bans on imports into the US. Rather, some sort of royalty agreement will be worked out between the parties if this patent issue actually holds water.
namabiru4me
Paice has already been successful in patent disputes with Toyota in the past. It seems that the patent is valid and file for in the mid-90s.
The jurisdiction here is for imports into the US. However, Paice may have international patent filings as well. If so, other markets would likely follow the ITC's decision and ban imports too.
societymike
Nice try, but for one, it's a US patent issue and a foreign product, so isn't there a "jurisdiction" issue here? Furthermore, at this day and age, it's a little bit difficult to maintain such a claim on basic technology that is required for common products, even harder to say you "thought of it first" when it's such a basic concept. (and for more info look into the part that is claimed to be in questions, it's very basic)