The following is excerpted from a June 10, 2011 article by Victoria Slind-Flor found at Bloomberg:
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a patent-infringement verdict that will cost Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) $300 million and already has forced changes in its Word software.
The justices yesterday unanimously rejected calls from Microsoft and its allies, including Apple Inc. and Google Inc. (GOOG), to overturn the award and make some patents more vulnerable to legal challenge.
The ruling is a victory for closely held I4i LP, which claimed in its 2007 lawsuit that its patented technology had been incorporated into Word, the word-processing program used by 500 million people. The award is the largest ever upheld on appeal in a patent case.
Read the full article here. Also, see the Amster Rothstein & Ebenstein LLP's Litigation Alert titled, "U.S. Supreme Court Confirms 'Clear and Convincing' Evidence Standard Apllies to Validity Challenges for Patents" by Joseph Casino and Charles Macedo.
I'm quite pleased that the Justices defied pundits' predictions and issued this ruling -- I always thought i4i had the stronger arguments, not to mention many years of tradition and precedent on its side. Moreover, I think there's a decent argument that a strong presumption of validity is indicated in the Constitution; and, on a policy note, in countries with weaker patent rights, there lurks always the danger that well-funded entities can use that lesser standard to bankrupt patentees, or even to deprive them of their IP altogether. Thank you, SCOTUS; well done.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZT-WQI3SfI
Posted by: patent litigation | June 13, 2011 at 07:32 PM