Skip to main content

Patent Law and Fees

File:Sonia Sotomayor 7 in robe, 2009.jpg


The U.S. Supreme Court issued three decisions on the morning of April 29th. One of these, the one that got all the press, concerned certain air-pollution rules by the EPA. The rules survived a challenge from the affected utilities.


The other two involved the fee-shifting provision of the Patent Act. It seems to me that these decisions address the trolling problem in patent law.


In preparing to write this blog entry I discovered that I have never yet used the word "troll" in a patent-law context in the history of Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed. I'm happy to remedy that defect now. Troll, troll, troll.


In the precursor to this blog, Pragmatism Refreshed, I used the word often, as here for example, or here.


Anyway, in patent-law circles a "troll" is a person or entity that collects patents without operational intention. The only reason to hold these patents at all is to engage in or threaten litigation over them. That is, to some of us, a sufficiently suspect business model to deserve the unflattering monosyllable "troll."


Often the lawsuits are based upon vaguely worded patents, or the lawsuits stretch such specifics as do exist in order to bring their suit. They get away with it because litigation is expensive, and firms often settle rather than fight. Even a modest-sized settlement is a win since the costs of running a patent.


Hence the two decisions Tuesday. They seem aimed at making it more likely that those who stand and fight and successfully defeat a trollish claim will find that the fight was worthwhile. And, at the margins anyway, that should reduce the number of times the fight ha to be undertaken.


The language of the fee-shifting provision turns on the word "exceptional." As in, "The court in exceptional cases may award reasonable attorney fees to the prevailing party." The court was unanimous in both cases, and in both cases spoke through Justice Sotomayor.


A good day's work for the wise Latina.













Labels:

Comments

  1. AnonymousMay 3, 2014 at 9:26 AM

    Like Edison, Tesla, and Bell. If we treated actors the same way, they would have to won a production company to act or writers would have to own a publishing house. This attitude against professional inventors is illogical and just an excuse by large corporations to steal the work of inventors.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ChristopherMay 3, 2014 at 10:38 AM

    WHO or what is "like Edison" etc.? It isn't at all clear what you're attempting to say here.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Story About Coleridge

This is a quote from a memoir by Dorothy Wordsworth, reflecting on a trip she took with two famous poets, her brother, William Wordsworth, and their similarly gifted companion, Samuel Taylor Coleridge.   We sat upon a bench, placed for the sake of one of these views, whence we looked down upon the waterfall, and over the open country ... A lady and gentleman, more expeditious tourists than ourselves, came to the spot; they left us at the seat, and we found them again at another station above the Falls. Coleridge, who is always good-natured enough to enter into conversation with anybody whom he meets in his way, began to talk with the gentleman, who observed that it was a majestic waterfall. Coleridge was delighted with the accuracy of the epithet, particularly as he had been settling in his own mind the precise meaning of the words grand, majestic, sublime, etc., and had discussed the subject with William at some length the day before. “Yes, sir,” says Coleridge, “it is a majesti
7 comments
Read more

Five Lessons from the Allegory of the Cave

  Please correct me if there are others. But it seems to be there are five lessons the reader is meant to draw from the story about the cave.   First, Plato  is working to devalue what we would call empiricism. He is saying that keeping track of the shadows on the cave wall, trying to make sense of what you see there, will NOT get you to wisdom. Second, Plato is contending that reality comes in levels. The shadows on the wall are illusions. The solid objects being passed around behind my back are more real than their shadows are. BUT … the world outside the the cave is more real than that — and the sun by which that world is illuminated is the top of the hierarchy. So there isn’t a binary choice of real/unreal. There are levels. Third, he equates realness with knowability.  I  only have opinions about the shadows. Could I turn around, I could have at least the glimmerings of knowledge. Could I get outside the cave, I would really Know. Fourth, the parable assigns a task to philosophers
Post a Comment
Read more

Searle: The Chinese Room

John Searle has become the object of accusations of improper conduct. These accusations even have some people in the world of academic philosophy saying that instructors in that world should try to avoid teaching Searle's views. That is an odd contention, and has given rise to heated exchanges in certain corners of the blogosphere.  At Leiter Reports, I encountered a comment from someone describing himself as "grad student drop out." GSDO said: " This is a side question (and not at all an attempt to answer the question BL posed): How important is John Searle's work? Are people still working on speech act theory or is that just another dead end in the history of 20th century philosophy? My impression is that his reputation is somewhat inflated from all of his speaking engagements and NYRoB reviews. The Chinese room argument is a classic, but is there much more to his work than that?" I took it upon myself to answer that on LR. But here I'll tak
13 comments
Read more