Tag Archives: Patent Lawsuits

Supreme Court Aims To Limit Patent Lawsuits

The Supreme Court just decided a patent case this week, Alice Corp. v. CLS International Bank and affirmed the Federal Circuit’s ruling. And that sounds simple enough. But it’s not.

Alice Corp. involved an attempt at patenting what many believed was simply a system that had been around for a long time by using a common computer and claiming that the process was deserving of a patent. The Federal Circuit thought otherwise and the Supreme Court backed them up. And we agree with the Supreme Court’s ruling in Alice – i.e., we think the Court got it right.  

When Alice Corp. is viewed in the context of the other patent cases decided by the Court this term, however, a total of six and all decided unanimously, what emerges is a clear message from the Court – the Court wants fewer patent lawsuits. 

Patent lawsuits have been the rage in the legal community for the past decade or so. Huge verdicts against big companies by seemingly small players, aided by juries in places you would have never thought would be a hot-bed of intellectual property litigation, for instance, Marshall, Texas, have fueled a boom to patent attorneys in both big and small firms.

Some see this as an example of plaintiffs gaming the system to win large judgments against large corporations on dubious claims. Others however, the plaintiffs bar included, see this as simply the result of a problem: too many corporations were trampling the rights of inventors who had legitimate claims against those corporations for trying to misappropriate what these individuals had worked years to create.

So, what does the Court do?

The same thing that conservative courts usually do when there appears to be a problem resulting in lots of litigation – not fix the problem but make it harder to bring the litigation.

This can be seen in the Court’s treatment of fee-shifting rules as well as the Court unwillingness to support patents, though without clear doctrinal guidance, in cases like Alice Corp.  This coupled with the reforms brought about by the America Invents Act of 2011, like “inter pares review” process, may spell at least a slowing if not cooling of patent litigation. Of course, whether or not these opinions and reforms actually address the problem of patent infringement is another story.

If you would like to read more about Alice Corp., including the briefs filed by attorneys in the case – click here for the Supreme Court of the United States Blog or SCOTUS Blog.