"The patent shouldn't have been filed in the first place," Swildens said. "It's a very well written patent. However, my personal belief is that the thing that they say they invented, they didn't invent."
The 936 patent played a key role in last year's lawsuit with Uber. In December 2016, a Waymo engineer was inadvertently copied on an email from one of its suppliers to Uber, showing a LiDAR circuit design that looked almost identical to the one shown in the 936 patent:
Swildens said to Wired in 2017: "I couldn't imagine the circuit didn't exist prior to this patent." He then spent $6,000 of his own money to launch a formal challenge to 936 and won in the court.
Thanks to AM for the pointer!
suggested reading:
ReplyDeletehttps://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/these-experts-figured-out-why-so-many-bogus-patents-get-approved/
Wahoo! The base of the laser diode pulse driver we can find in all Lidar, since the begining of humanity.... impressive
ReplyDeleteIt seems a very fundamental circuit. Just because they are the first one proposing this circuit, then they can hold the patent forever ?
ReplyDeleteSo, you have never seen the aps pixel schematics? Check that and understand what a "fundamental" circuit is ;).
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