How the U.S. Courts View the Rights of Individual Patentees
Fleur T. Tehrani Department of Electrical Engineering, California State University, Fullerton, CA, USA This article presents a case study of patent litigation involving an individual academic inventor and three manufacturers that were using her invention and marketing it worldwide. The article provides an overview of the invention, the patent covering it, and the manner in which the case was handled at different levels in the U.S. courts. A brief discussion of the recent trends in restricting patent litigation and some recommendations for improving and streamlining the process are provided. In addition, some of the possible impacts of implementing recently suggested measures that bear on the ability of individual and academic inventors to assert their patent rights are also discussed.
INTRODUCTION
Section 271 of the Patent Act, 35 U.S.C. § 271, provides in relevant part: “Except as otherwise provided in this title, whoever without authority makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells any patented invention, within the United States or imports into the United States any patented invention during the term of the patent, therefore, infringes the patent.” The language of the Patent Act is clear, but it is well known that defending against patent infringement in the U.S. is quite expensive, costing about $3 to 10 million on average (1), and only affordable to wealthy businesses and manufacturers. For this reason, some organizations have been formed in the U.S. to facilitate the commercialization of patents and help individual inventors who are unable to afford the costs of patent litigation to assert their rights. Some of these organizations, referred to as Patent Assertion Entities (PAEs), purchase the patent rights of small inventors and file litigation suits against infringers. However, the activities of some PAEs have led to abuse of the system and have come under increasing criticism in recent years (2,3).
To curb the abuses of the patent system, the U.S. Congress has passed a number of reform bills in recent years. In May 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court made a ruling to limit the location where a patent litigation suit against a corporation could be filed.