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Authored by: red floyd on Thursday, December 27 2012 @ 03:47 PM EST |
I believe the judge in the RIM case forced RIM to settle, and a settlement
stands regardless of the merits of the patent.
Take with a large crystal of NaCl... IANAL, and am working from memory.
---
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a *CITIZEN* of the United
States of America.
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Authored by: tknarr on Thursday, December 27 2012 @ 04:06 PM EST |
I think it'd depend on whether it was a jury verdict or a settlement, the
terms of any settlement and whether the patent was overturned within the time
allowed to file an appeal.
If it was a settlement, if the terms were such
that the settlement was final the patent being overturned wouldn't affect the
settlement unless the infringer could show that the patent holder misrepresented
the situation to get the settlement. OTOH if it were me I'd insist on a term in
the settlement allowing for it to be voided and any payments made returned if
the patent was overturned within a certain time.
If it was a jury
verdict, I'd think that it'd be grounds for appeal for the patent to be
overturned. If the time limit for an appeal's passed, you'd be out of luck. But
if you still have time to file an appeal when the PTO's ruling is made final,
I'd think you could include that on appeal as a statement by the PTO that at the
time the jury rendered it's verdict the patent was not valid and thus could not
be infringed. The presumption of patent validity I would think can't trump a
direct statement by the PTO to the contrary. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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Authored by: PJ on Thursday, December 27 2012 @ 06:19 PM EST |
Here's what happened to RIM. The difference is the Apple v. Samsung litigation
is not yet final. The parties argued certain issues to the jury and reserved
others for the judge, and that last part isn't done yet.
One of the things
in front of the judge is a JMOL motion by Samsung, in which it argued that no
reasonable jury could find Apple's patents infringed. The judge is still free
to agree.
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Authored by: Wol on Thursday, December 27 2012 @ 07:29 PM EST |
The judge refused to delay judgement (in particular an injunction) until after
the USPTO reconsidered the patents.
BOTH sides in that case engaged in judicial misbehaviour. If RIM hadn't royally
upset the judge he would probably have waited.
Cheers,
Wol[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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Authored by: kg on Saturday, December 29 2012 @ 09:41 PM EST |
I would think that in the greater scheme of things,
fraudulently filed
patents (such as the Apple patent that
they decided wasn't actually a separate
patent after all)
and patents that are not granted or due to prior art, etc.,
could be seen as an attempt to defraud both the public and
other companies.
Perhaps it's time for the DOJ should
investigate and file charges.
IP law
originally came from the perspective that patents
and copyright are
time-limited exceptions to public
ownership, and as far as I know that is still
the
constitutional view of it. Of course, if several patents are
filed for the
same or a very similar thing prior to the
patent being granted, it wouldn't be
a problem.
The onus to exhaustively prove that this is a new
invention and
that prior art does not exist should be on the
filer. Successfully challenged
patents could be viewed under
the most common circumstances (e.g., filing
without an
extensive search for prior art) to have been gross
negligence and
an attempt to defraud the public.
In short, filing bad patents could be
called economic
terrorism. --- IANAL
Linguist and Open Source Developer [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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