Posts Tagged: "patent misuse"

Georgia Senate Candidate Proposes Patent Reform to Lower Prescription Drug Costs

Gardner proposes to make it patent misuse to charge much more in the United States for the same drug than in the rest of the G7. According to Gardner, “it would be presumptive patent misuse to charge more than 125% of the average price in the other 6 countries in the G7 and it would be conclusive patent misuse to charge more than 150%.” This innovative change would be a simple change in the U.S. patent laws and would be very impactful. Said Gardner, “If the patent is being ‘misused’ in this way, the patent would be invalidated and/or unenforceable, opening up competition for generics. So the owner of a drug patent would have a strong interest in avoiding losing the protection of the patent and would hold down U.S. prices and/or drive up prices around the world. Either way, we (the U.S. consumers) would over time end up paying the real price of patented medicines, not the exaggerated price which includes a subsidy for foreigner consumers.”

Patent Misuse, Exploring the Basics

The term “patent misuse” refers to specific types of prohibited behavior engaged in by the owner of the patent rights. Patent misuse is an affirmative defense that recognizes that it is possible for a patent owner to abuse the exclusive right enjoyed as a result of the issuance of a patent. As an affirmative defense, patent misuse cannot be used as a sword, but can only be used by an alleged infringer if and when the patent owner seeks to enforce the exclusive right of the patent in a patent infringement suit. Once a patent infringement suit is initiated, the alleged infringer, in order to successfully rely upon the patent misuse defense, must “show that the patentee has impermissibly broadened the ‘physical or temporal scope’ of the patent grant with anticompetitive effect.” If the alleged infringer can demonstrate that the patent owner did engaged in prohibited behavior, the patent will be unenforceable despite the fact that it is valid. In this respect, patent misuse is similar to the doctrine of inequitable conduct, which also works to make an entire patent unenforceable.

Antitrust Law Basics: A Primer on Patent and Copyright Misuse

With copyright misuse having recently been successful in a rather high profile case I thought it would be worthwhile to revisit patent misuse and misuse concepts generally. To do that in a way that allows the casually interested reader to follow along probably requires first taking a step back away from the intellectual property centric theories to discuss some basic antitrust law concepts. This seems particularly appropriate since many of the misuse cases have a distinct antitrust flavor.

Costco Prevails in First Sale Case Thanks to Copyright Misuse

On November 9, 2011, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, per Senior Judge Terry J. Hatter, Jr., granted Costco a summary judgment victory due to the fact that Omega engaged in copyright misuse. Yes, the plot thickened. The district court originally granted summary judgment to Costco on the basis of the first sale doctrine, which was overturned by the Ninth Circuit and then affirmed by the Supreme Court in the tie decision, or non-decision of December 2010. That meant that the case would proceed because the first sale doctrine summary judgment victory was erased. But not so fast! Judge Hatter had other ideas!

Indicia of Extortion – Federal Circuit Slams Patent Troll

It was also determined that the underlying patent litigation was brought for no other reason than to extract nuisance payments despite the fact that there was no infringement. Specifically, the district court determined that Eon-Net filed the lawsuit against Flagstar had “indicia of extortion” because it was part of Eon-Net’s history of filing nearly identical patent infringement complaints against a plethora of diverse defendants, where Eon-Net followed each filing with a demand for a quick settlement at a price far lower than the cost to defend the litigation.