Why 3dsystems lawsuit against Formlabs for patent infringement has no merit!!

"If Kickstarter can be sued for patent infringement by a company that raises funding on Kickstarter, then can the New York Stock Exchange be sued for patent infringement by a company listed there?

This item will not be sold until after 2014, at which time the 20-year utility patent will have expired. I thought patents only prohibited the selling of patented items. But now they also prevent what is technically only fund-raising?

How about R&D? Is R&D during the patent period prohibited too? How about if two or three techies get together in a restaurant to chat about what they could do when a patent expires? Are we allowed to even think about patented technology prior to the expiration of the patent?

I would think that patent lawyers would be concerned about the precedent involved in this suit, because if patents become too strong, then innovation will be inhibited and consequently there will be less opportunity for patent conflict, hence less employment for patent attorneys."

This idea was posted by engineerzero under Rob's makezine blog post!

link to blog post.