Cognex
is going after Microscan, claiming its Mobile
Hawk
DataMatrix codereader infringes a Cognex patent. (Yahoo
Finance,
April 2nd,
2013.) Unsurprisingly, Microscan asserts that Cognex’s claim is
“without
merit.”
One
wonders what’s really going on. Could Microscan really have stolen
Cognex’s ideas and put them out in the Hawk?
Seems
unlikely to me. Cognex is a pretty litigious company and they like to
protect their intellectual property. It looks to me more like a shot
across the bows. By forcing Microscan to spend a lot of time and
energy defending themselves Cognex is putting them on notice that
they will not give up market share without a very expensive fight.
Can
Microscan afford that fight? I suspect not, so eventually some deal
will be worked out. My bet is that Cognex will agree to go away if
Microscan stays off their turf.
Perhaps
Microscan should be flattered that Cognex is taking them seriously!
Posts
2 comments:
This is a usual pattern of Cognex. So far, they sued Matrox and MVTec, but always lost. It's likely that they just try to bankrupt smaller companies.
Datamatrix was once Microscan/RSVI/Acuity turf. In fact, weren't they the ones that invented the Datamatrix code, then placed it in the public domain? Not to say that Cognex hasn't contributed new ideas. But the irony must really burn the people at Microscan.
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