Is it patent infringement to produce patented goods but take no compensation?

Question

There are many experimental tools in biological research that cost researchers an exorbitant amount (for example, single-cell RNA sequencing technology) - would someone be infringing on a patent (or likely, multiple patents) if they choose to produce the tools themselves and then gave the tools away to researchers, and received no compensation? How about if that person took donations through a GoFundMe to cover the production costs? Would there be any ways of doing this that are explicitly legally safe?

Answer 1

You can’t do this

A patent provides the owner with the exclusive right to make (among other things) the patented thing.

Answer 2

"Would there be any ways of doing this that are explicitly legally safe?"

Yes. Buy all the patents, out of your own money.

Another option, if you can't afford that, is to buy a smaller number of licences and then pass those on for free to whoever you like. Or fund your own research/innovation centre. There are lots of legal ways of doing this.

The problem patents (and other intellectual property restrictions) are intended to solve is that research and innovation to develop a new technique is very expensive (laboratories, equipment, worker education, safety regulations, the cost of all the failed attempts, ...), but once invented, it is very cheap to copy. If researchers can't make money out of it, they won't do the research, and human progress suffers. (Scientists have bills to pay, too!) So we get round this - in a crude and inefficient way - by granting a temporary monopoly on an invention so that the inventor can charge as much as is needed to pay back the costs of its development and fund the next stage of research, and then the world gets it for free thereafter.

The result is that inventors invent, the rich who can afford it pay the full development costs in return for immediate access, and the rest of the world reaps the benefits in perpetuity of a much more voluminous stream of enthusiastic inventions once the patents expire.

If you want the rest of the world to get earlier access to those benefits, then you need to find a way to pay off the development costs faster. The obvious way is to simply pay the inventors directly. Buy the patent out of your own funds, and then release it to the rest of the world for free. The patent-holders are happy, they're being paid. The world is happy, they're getting the benefits immediately. And you're happy, you have generously used your own earnings to make the world a better place.

Answer 3

Of course it is; how could it not be?

If you want to do this, that or the other without paying patent fees you have the option to contact the patent holder, explain how your activity doesn't infringe the patent and ask for some kind of special licence.

Why would that not work for you?