software - just found out about patents

[johnc8117]

Hi there. We are currently developing some software that will backup data from a computer to a place on the internet and we've been working on it for 6 months now. The software looks good and works well. We've just started looking into our competitors and on one of our competitors software products they cite 7 patents all for processes that our software also does. As you can imagine, I'm feeling quite depressed about this and found this forum in a search so thought I'd ask if there's anything I can do or if I should just stop development? There are other people doing backup software out there and some seem quite similar, so where do we stand legally?

Just one note - we are in the UK, not USA, so not sure if these laws apply to us

Thanks in advance

John

 

[I AM ALWAYS LIABLE]

Hi there. We are currently developing some software that will backup data from a computer to a place on the internet and we've been working on it for 6 months now. The software looks good and works well. We've just started looking into our competitors and on one of our competitors software products they cite 7 patents all for processes that our software also does. As you can imagine, I'm feeling quite depressed about this and found this forum in a search so thought I'd ask if there's anything I can do or if I should just stop development? There are other people doing backup software out there and some seem quite similar, so where do we stand legally?

Just one note - we are in the UK, not USA, so not sure if these laws apply to us

Thanks in advance

John

US Law Only - WHEN POSTING A QUESTION, YOU MUST INCLUDE THE NAME OF YOUR STATE​

 

[auxbs]

Just one note - we are in the UK, not USA, so not sure if these laws apply to us

Find out if they have international patents or just US patents. If they don't have any patents that are enforceable in the UK, then don't worry about them. You probably won't be able to sell your software or services to people who reside in the patented country, but the world is a big place and you'll still have plenty of people to sell to.

If they do have patents that are enforceable in the UK, then you have to consider what you want to do. Since you are building this product in the UK, you would be subject to their patents, if they decide to enforce them. Maybe you can negotiate a license agreement with them or something??