Rebirth of America, this is my era

Chapter 67 The Worst Result

Chapter 67 The Worst Result
During Barbara's silence, Ethan actually thought about the issues behind the patent.

When he starts using the excuse of "protecting scientific research" to try to become a vested interest of MOS 6502, real scientists will surely enjoy better legal protection, or in other words, artificial protection, before him.

"so--"

Ethan took a deep breath and said with a smile, "Is it an infringement?"

Now that things have come to this, Ethan is no longer angry.

This is not because he is open-minded, but because he knows that getting angry is useless.

The most important thing to do now is to solve the problem.

Of course, before that, he still had a question in his mind, "Teacher Barbara, can you help me with one more thing?"

"Go ahead." Barbara opened her eyes and answered readily, "If I had the channel, I would definitely ask for you."

"It is true that I am not knowledgeable enough in this matter. I will try my best to make up for my mistake."

"Oh Barbara, there's no need to talk about such meaningless things." Ethan smiled and shook his head, "It's us who have been bothering you all along. You have been a great help to us. We should thank you."

Before she finished speaking, Evelin came over, opened her arms, and gave her a hug like a koala.

Holding the girl's waist and stroking her vest, Barbara sighed, "Thank you."

Then, she raised her eyebrows at Ethan again, and after getting the signal of inquiry, Ethan also said what he was thinking.

"Teacher Barbara, if Milova's patent is so powerful, why did they spend so much time on the infringement of Pong? Pong is also a game that uses a TV screen to generate, display, manipulate and use symbols or geometric figures."

"If Milova can sue us with this patent, why couldn't it just sue Atari with this patent in the first place?"

That's right!

This is what Ethan is most confused about!

If Ralph Baer's patent is really that awesome, then why is Atari still around today?

Can't you just strangle him to death earlier?
This way everyone will know that your patent is incredible!
As soon as this question arose, Barbara smiled and pointed to the copy of the patent on the table, motioning Ethan to look at it himself.

After Ethan picked it up, Barbara said, "Turn to the page of the patent that lists the rights holders, and tell me what you see?"

Ethan just glanced at it and frowned. "The patent officially took effect on April 1973, 4?"

"Patent inventor, Ralph Henry Bell, patent owner, Sanders Associates?"

"Yeah~"

Ethan's words made Barbara smile bitterly and shake her head.

"I'm curious about your question. I thought there might be a loophole here, so I just asked the people at the Patent Office, and they said that this patent does not belong to Milova, but to a company called Sanders."

"Because Ralph Bell was the technical director of Sanders when he invented the 'brown box', which was the predecessor of the Milova Odyssey. Sanders' funds were also used in the entire research and development process. Therefore, when the patent was registered, the owner column was filled in with the name of Sanders Company in accordance with the research and development regulations."

"At first, Milova only obtained the production, sales and marketing rights of the 'brown box'. Then they applied for a series of patents based on these rights. For example, the name, appearance, internal technology and circuit board of the Odyssey console. Their patents are all for specific products."

"So, when Atari started copying in 73, MILOVA could not directly sue based on its own product patents, because from the perspective of product protection alone, the arcade game Pong did not infringe on the rights of the home console MILOVA Odyssey. And MILOVA did not think of obtaining these patent licenses from Sanders at the beginning. It was not until the arcade industry became more and more prosperous and they needed to use violence to protect their rights that they communicated with Sanders and obtained all the patents. After that, they only needed to pay Sanders a licensing fee."

'...'

Fine.

Ethan was very convinced by this reason.

When so many coincidences come together, it's really outrageous and opens the door to outrageous special codes. It's outrageous to the extreme!
"Okay, okay, I understand."

Ethan nodded and said, "If this is the case, then we admit defeat."

"So many unexpected events happened at the same time, this is really... MFxxk!"

After cursing, Ethan also wanted to know what he should do next.

If possible, he doesn't want to go to court.

If it is possible to settle out of court, then do so, because litigation is troublesome.

When Ethan asked what was on his mind, Barbara said that things might not be resolved so quickly.

Because the United States has a complete set of litigation procedures, after the defendant receives the indictment, he needs to submit a reply within a certain period of time. In California, this time is thirty days, and then it will enter the next stage called evidence disclosure. At this stage, the lawyers of both parties will exchange the evidence they have collected. After all the evidence appears, the case is generally solved.

In order to save judicial resources, the court actually encourages reconciliation. Therefore, after the evidence disclosure stage, both parties can decide whether to enter the reconciliation stage or the litigation stage. If the defendant meets all the requirements of the plaintiff, then the court will definitely not hold a trial. Only when the reconciliation is invalid and the court mediation is also invalid will the final trial stage be entered.

Of course, if they were Milova’s own lawyers, their core goal would definitely be to make money.

The more compensation the company can get, the more stable their position in the company will be, and the more commission they can get from the business.

After all, the biggest purpose of patents like this one that can strangle the industry is to make money.

But other law firms——

"They are also seeking money, but what they are seeking is not compensation, but the legal fees promised by Mi Luohua."

Barbara said, "In the lawsuit, Milova asked you to pay one million in compensation and stop infringing on the copyright." "The former is basically all the profits you made from Snake Game, right? The latter is to stop selling Snake Game in the United States, or in other words, not to sell it on standard television."

"The first one is easy to do. The second one, I know you won't be willing to do it without asking."

"So, I still want to say, Ethan, please think about whether you have offended Mirohua? Because under normal circumstances, when something like patent infringement occurs, the first thing a commercial company should do is to send a lawyer's letter to the infringer. Only after the infringer does not stop the infringement will a lawsuit be filed. In the lawsuit, it is usually the company's lawyers who handle the problem, and rarely involves external law firms..."

"Oh, by the way, there is one more thing. Atari is actually also an infringer, but why is their name not on the complaint? You have to look into this kind of thing carefully, because if there are two cases, that would be the worst outcome..."

"Because you may have to pay more than one million yuan."

Barbara's words made Ethan frown.

He really didn't understand how he had offended Milohua!

Did he ask for 2N+1 when he was first fired?
Or an invitation to Nolan Bushnell's Odyssey?

If Mi Luohua was making a big deal out of these things, then he would be really speechless!
Because the first thing was that he was fighting for his legal rights, and the second thing really had nothing to do with him!

After thinking for a long time, Ethan still couldn't figure it out.

Seeing that it was getting late, Barbara suggested that they go home and think about it slowly.

Anyway, the reply can be submitted within 30 days, which means that as long as they can figure out the problem before October 15th, they may be able to drag the case into the settlement stage. Otherwise... they have to pray to God that Milova does not offer reward clauses to those lawyers from the law firms. For example, if Ethan Jones is forced to stop selling "Snake Game" throughout the United States, the lawyers can get a certain amount of money.

Because this kind of clause will make the lawyers stare at them like vultures.

…………

At eight o'clock that evening, the brand new Dino 246 GTS stopped at Evelyn's doorstep.

The red streamlined body reflects a light pink light under the moonlight, like a bedside night light, soft and gentle.

And Ethan, who was sitting in the car, looked at Evelin apologetically and said, “I’m sorry…this is my problem. I will try to find out the reason.”

“Okay~” Evelin waved her hand and said, “What did you say to Barbara before? You told her not to take the blame, right? I’m going to tell you this now, too. Don’t take the blame, because this incident was not caused by you.”

"I made Snake Game, I drew the circuit diagram, so I know how outrageous this patent is."

"But there's no way, right?"

"Teacher Vinton said that Professor Ralph Bell may not be as famous as President Fred Terman in the circle, but those who do scientific research actually know how terrifying his ability to invent is."

"The federal patent office may not understand technology, but they understand communication."

"So it is normal for us to fail. This is not because of their ignorance, but because of our powerlessness."

"Just as..."

"It's a lesson learned."

Evelin unbuckled her seatbelt, opened her arms, and said with a smile, “Hold me?”

Such words made Ethan laugh, and he went straight to meet her without any hesitation.

"Thank you."

he whispered.

However, just when Ethan was about to admit that he was unlucky and decided to pay out most of the profits from Snake Game, before he even walked into the house, a series of rapid phone rings came into his ears. He walked into the house, picked up the phone, and suddenly a roar came -

"Ethan Jones!!!"

"Where the hell have you been!!!"

"I called you all day and no one answered!!!"

“Your “Snake Game” is actually an infringing product???”

"Oh! Sxxt! Milova's indictment has been sent to me!!!"

“At the same time, they also took Midway Games and Chicago Coin to court!!!”

"Dxxm! Do you know that your behavior will cause us to lose a lot of money!!!"

"You must explain this matter to me clearly! I'm in the company now! Come here right now!!!"

'...'

Ethan shook his head at the machine gun-like speed of speech and the sudden busy tone of the phone.

He shook the copy of the indictment in his hand and looked at it carefully. Indeed, Atari's name was not listed as a defendant.

"Okay, worst case scenario."