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Supreme Court Clears Patent Invalidity Suits
The Empiricist writes "The United States Supreme Court has cleared the way for entities to sue over the validity of a patent — even while paying user fees to the patent holder. The eight-to-one Medimmune v. Genetech decision, written by Justice Scalia, held that by paying royalties to a patent holder, one does not necessarily waive the right to challenge the validity of the patent."
that it is obvious that the Supreme Court would reach this decision. Any other decision would defy all logic.
For average Joes like you and me, if I tell you that you owe me money, and you fear damage to your credit report if you don't pay me but you don't actually think that you do owe me, you can write "paid under protest" underneath where I would endorse the check, and then sue me to get your money back. The court won't hold it against you that you paid the bill if you make it clear to the court that you never considered yourself to be liable for the debt.*
The fact that we're talking about multi-bazillion dollar corporations doesn't mean this concept shouldn't still apply.
(* As a side note, the new electronic bank records for checks makes this a lot more viable as proof, because the fact that the bank has on record that they cashed the check with "paid under protest" already written on it means that the defendant can't claim you wrote it after the fact. Also, banks have to send you an official copy of their record of the check upon request - the copy you get with your bank statement may get accepted in small claims court, but it's not what the law considers "official".)
But you raise another interesting point: the ability of a licensee to essentially attack the patent-holder via law suit to try to get the little guy to buckle. Such a lawsuit is clearly unjust and there's got to be a law somewhere that covers such an aggressive move against a patent-holder. Extortion? Racketeering? The little guy ought to be able to immediately contest the lawsuit itself as being predatory, meant to bankrupt him, force him to sell his patent, or re-negotiate the license. If the lawsuit is found to be without merit and predatory, the company bringing the suit should be liable in a HUGE way at that point, ordered to pay HUGE compensation, and the executives who initiated the suit brought up on criminal charges. Otherwise, companies will be able to get away with anything they want as long as they have a bigger legal war chest than their competitors.
that portfolio is what makes it attractive for purchase by larger companies.
Back in the day the goal of a small company was to grow until it was one of the larger companies, not lose itself to the highest bidder.
KFG