Points To Consider Before Filing A Patent Infringement Lawsuit ...

Writer: Aimee Sanchez on Jun 14 2011.

Patents offer legal recognition to the right of an inventor to prevent unscrupulous individuals from making use of his or her original invention for their personal gains. They allow the inventor to prosecute a person or company for trying to make such unauthorized use of the original invention or its process. However, there are a few aspects that need to be considered before taking legal action against a patent infringement.

Firstly, you must make sure that there has been a literal infringement of your product secured by patent. In other words, the infringing product must have imitated all aspects of your product. It is only in certain special cases that anything short of a literal infringement is treated as a valid infringement of a patent. However, this requires strong evidence to the effect that there are enough similarities and that the final effect that the infringing product creates is significantly similar to the original product.

Secondly, you ought to have some kind of direct connection with the patent in order to file a suit against the offender. You can either be the sole owner of the patented product or a licensee ? exclusive or partial ? of the product to be able to file a suit for violation. You also need to consider the law of limitation of the jurisdiction and file a suit within the time stipulated for such cases, as otherwise the claim would be treated as invalid.

Although you can proceed against not only the manufacturer of the infringing product but also against the user of the product, any such step can be taken only while the patent lasts. After the expiry of the patent, no misuse of the product can be alleged as a violation of the patent.

Last but not the least, though patents stand on the strict liability principle, you must keep in mind that the use of a patent for conducting research is permitted and it is not considered as tantamount to infringement.

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