Interested in practising an expired patent...

[zuniman]

What is the name of your state? Florida

To all,

I'm new to this forum... I am sure this has been addressed in many forms, but here goes.

I want to develop a fishing bait that was patented 20 years ago, but is now expired. There are many, many new patents on different formulations of fishing bait, but I want to develop a product based on the former expired patent. Am I essentially free to operate without risk of infringement? Is this enough info for someone to offer guidance?

I don't care about patent protection for myself (I plan on being successful because of marketing and channel strategy), I just don't want to be infringing on newer patents...although I suspect that if I'm practicing the expired patent to a "T", I should be OK. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
zuniman ???

 

[divgradcurl]

I want to develop a fishing bait that was patented 20 years ago, but is now expired. There are many, many new patents on different formulations of fishing bait, but I want to develop a product based on the former expired patent. Am I essentially free to operate without risk of infringement? Is this enough info for someone to offer guidance?

An expired patent is not enforceable in any way. You can freely practice an expired patent -- assuming that you don't step on any unexpired patents along the way!

I don't care about patent protection for myself (I plan on being successful because of marketing and channel strategy), I just don't want to be infringing on newer patents...although I suspect that if I'm practicing the expired patent to a "T", I should be OK. Any help would be appreciated.

That is generally correct -- if you are practicing an expired patent exactly, then you should not be infringing any other patents. If you deviate from the expired patent, you run the risk of infringing other patents that may exist.