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US Supreme Court: Patent Holders Must Prove Infringment
jfruh writes "The Supreme Court issued a ruling that might help marginally curb patent madness. Ruling on a case between Medtronic and Mirowski Family Ventures, the court rules that the burden of proof in patent infringement cases is always on the patent holder. This is true even in the specific case at hand, in which Medtronic sought a declaratory judgement that it was not violating the Mirowski patents."
placing the burden on the patent holder to prove the patent is NOT the result of:
- Patent slamming to game the system (e.g. submitting the same fucking thing 100 different times hoping one submission will slip by an overworked patent reviewer)
- Patenting something already patented
- Patenting something that is already obvious
- Submarine-patenting
A plaintiff always bears the burden of proof in showing that he is entitled to the relief requested from the court. For patent infringement, that means showing a patent has been infringed.
The only reason this is in the news is because the appellate court (the CAFC) screwed it up one time, and the Supreme Court had to make a return to sanity.
How hard would it be for OpenSource Projects and Small Companies to file for a declarative judgement lawsuit for every software patent held by trolls? I'm assuming that filing fees would get cost prohibitive quickly, but would we be able to DOS attack the patent trolls and the courts they use to prove the point?
This is EXACTLY the problem right now: filing an infringement claim is trivial, it only requires the plaintiff to assert infringement (not detail it). That currently triggers discovery which is costly for the defendant. Defendants thus settle for less than the cost of discovery. That is the essence of legal blackmail/patent trolling.
SUPPORT PATENT REFORM IN THE SENATE.
The markup happens in March. There is a hearing today as well.
Stay early discovery or require costs to be borne by the plaintiff.
Permit fee shifting when plaintiff's lose.
Identify the real party in interest and REQUIRE a bond - shell companies currently do most of the trolling and are judgment proof (have no assets).
PROTECT END USERS - using an API can get you a patent infringement lawsuit (if the API is alleged to infringe), offering wireless in your cafe gets you sued (because Cisco allegedly infringed on someones patent and you are using their device).
Now Google can fight MS in regards to their claims of Patent Infringenment in Android and force them to prove it. If they fail, then MS is going to be out lots of money for the licenses they've charged for.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
If you sue someone for patent infringement you have always had the burden of proof, even before this ruling. All this ruling is saying is that if you threaten to sue someone, and they go to a judge first asking you to put-up or shut-up, the burden is still on you as the patent holder, same as if you had sued them.
Secondly, this ruling does nothing to limit the discovery process. As a small inventor suing a big company you still have the same subpoena powers during discovery as you did before.
In other words, the Supreme Court simply reaffirmed that accused infringers are innocent until proven guilty, regardless of the procedural nuances of how the lawsuit is initiated. None of the concerns you voiced will become worse due to this ruling.