AIS patent situation

[Ulrich G. Kliegis]

Surfing around, I stumbled over this:
http://www.gpc.se/patent/index.htm

Not all present transponder manufacturers are listed there as
licence-takers. Would there be any resulting impact on a user
/customer?

Regards,
U.

 

[Shaun Van Poecke]

Hi Ulrich,
This is an extremely situation, and you are right to be concerned about it.
You may be fined, or worse, taken to court by the owner of the patent. I
reccomend that you send any AIS equipment you have to me and, for a fee, i
will see that it is returned to the original manufacturer. If you have any
GPS or other equipment capable of receiving AIS data then you would be on
the safe side to also send this to me. Becuase it is 'AIS capable' there
may be some danger here, but because it is a bit of a gray area, I wont
charge you anything for receiving this equipment.

Thanks!

Shaun