I am not a patent lawyer, nor a lawyer. I am a senior in college about to graduate with a degree in EE. I have had various lectures on the US patent laws, and the general patent process.
The United States Patent Office has recent patents on file online in
www.uspto.gov. The following is a brief based on Antec's patent.
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If you look at the dates, it was filed in 2003 perhaps 2002, and approved in 2004. Obviously LED fans did not debut in 2003. This is only with regards to the United States. Antec may well hold patents in other nations with regard to this:
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However, patents held in other nations does not apply to the United States without proper International Patent applications processes and international patent treaties.
If you take a look at this article written in 2001 which depicts the LED fan mod, you can see that the LED fan mod took place no later than 2001:
<click me> I know LED fans existed before 2002 in terms of mods. A simple Google search brought me that article which I read in 2001.
The existence of a patent does not guarantee anything. You can patent anything you want. If the patent is approved by the patent office, this granting an actual patent, you have "something." You do not know if the patent is valid until you can actually defend it in court. Once you win a victory, or lose, you know you have something tangible. "Patent pending" refers to the period of time when a company has filed a patent with the patent office and is in the process of getting the patent approved. During this time, the company can say to the public that they do have patents in process. And the company is granted some protection. Nothing in the public domain can be patented after the public release. That means no one can patent the wheel since the wheel existed before the patent was filed.
Here is my analysis. The LED fan modification was in the public domain in 2001 with respect to the moddin.net article. Even if Antec filed the patent application as early as 2002 and was granted the patent in 2004, the fact that the moddin.net article was written in 2001 makes the patent invalid. The invalidation of the patent can only be granted via a court order. Furthermore, the existence of a patent means nothing unless the holder decides to take action. This means, I can own a patent and allow public use for free. However, since Antec has decided to take some action, such as warnings, Antec can now get sued to have that patent invalidated.
With respect to Antec, yes, they have a patent. Yes, they have the right to defend it. No, their patent is not valid.
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