Hal says:
"Perry E. Metzger" <perry@imsi.com> writes:
A "submarine" patent application would have been made before the public use.
I'm not familiar with this term, "submarine" patent application.
Basically, what you do is use administrative tricks to delay the patent from being issued for as many years as possible -- sometimes decades -- while the idea becomes popular and gets incorporated into lots of products. Patent applications in the U.S. are kept secret by law. Then, the patent finally gets granted -- resulting in lots of people suddenly finding that the product they've been building for many years is now patented by someone -- retroactively making them liable for fat juicy license fees. Another trick is to have the patent delayed by a secrecy order... Perry