Posts Tagged: "bond requirement"

The US House passed the Innovation Act (HR3309) in December 2013. The Senate is now well on its way to incorporating this legislation which will make Americans poorer. The bills have many problems that will inhibit small inventors, but the most insidious are “Loser Pays” and “Pay to Play”. It changes the law, singling out inventors as a class so onerous that only they must pay the other side’s legal fees if they don’t win every claim. Pay to Play makes inventors guarantee payment up-front. Some proposed Senate bills (e.g.: S.1013 & S.1612) make sure that almost all Americans and most small companies will never be able to afford to enforce their patents on their inventions.

This is an exceptional case; IA Labs brought an objectively baseless claim, which the Court finds was brought in bad faith. Interaction Laboratories, Inc. — the original ‘226 patent holder — developed a product known as the Kilowatt that embodied the invention of the ‘226 patent. It was sharply apparent that the Kilowatt had been publicly demonstrated at trade shows, disclosed in numerous publications, and offered for sale more than one year prior to the filing of the patent application. Thus, the ‘226 patent was, without question, statutorily invalid pursuant to the on-sale bar. Since IA Labs knew of these invalidating activities before it sued Ninetendo for infringement, the Court can only conclude that it sued on the ‘226 patent in bad faith…