Horace Greeley wrote: > I assume you mean in terms of something being plagarized from an out of > date patent as a form of scholarship and research? Horace, I'm not sure what you mean. I suffered unfounded accusations of plagiarism while I was in school and I'm sure I exhausted the literature I referenced. This patent references two German patents - C-96 578 from 03/1898 and C-224 40 from 07/1910 of whose contents I am unfamiliar, but the piano in my shop predates both of them while it exhibits precisely the subject of the patent. Do you mean that I am inquiring whether anyone knows of the at least physical precedent for this patent, or do you mean that the patent is founded upon the scholarship and research of the holders of the patent? Since there is an assignee, Steinway, Inc., it would seem that the patent is not simply a _vanity patent_ (meaning that a number of the returns on my search seem unlikely candidates for commercial application) but rather an invention being considered for integration into a product, perhaps 110 years after a possible prior patent. I understand that integrating several unrelated out-of-date patents is permissable, and that an un-patented innovation may be grabbed. This is rather the focus of my inquiry: I do not claim to be well versed in legal language (tho. I used to be in State-Departmentalese...;)) so I may be missing certain features that supercede what the Broadwood has - however, it seems that the adjustable portion of the invention _is not_ the premise of the patent, instead a subset of it. In this case, does ignorance count? Or should someone be compiling a list of the semi-infringements Steinway has racked over time. Clark, "I'm now on the Steinway blacklist but I don't want to work on another Steinway upright anyways, and Steinway hammers come damaged worse than Pratt-Win parts"
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