Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote in
:

So if
it is determined that this is way too important of a safety feature
his patent could be over ruled by a higher entity. Probably unlikely
but he might not get favorable results if he pushes too hard.

No, it doesn't work like that. If a patent is deemed too
essential for an industry for it to be restricted to a single
owner, then the courts can require the patent holder to license
it at an "equitable" rate - an example of this is cellphones,
where the different brands of phones have to work together to
make the system practical, so the owners of the basic 3G and
4G patents were required to license them.

Now it appears that licensing is actually what Gass wants, but
his idea of an "equitable" fee may not be the same as what a
court would consider reasonable.

John