Supreme Court Says Patent Trolls Can Wait A While Before Suing

from the laches-upon-laches dept

In a ruling this week that will cheer up patent trolls, the Supreme Court said patent owners can lie in wait for years before suing. This will allow trolls to sit around while others independently develop and build technology. The troll can then jump out from under the bridge and demand payment for work it had nothing to do with.

The 7-1 decision arrives in a case called SCA Hygiene v. First Quality Baby Products. This case involves a patent on adult diapers but has a much broader reach. The court considered whether the legal doctrine of "laches" applies in patent cases. Laches is a principle that penalizes a rightsholder who "sleeps on their rights" by waiting a long time to file a lawsuit after learning of a possible infringement. It protects those that would be harmed by the assertion of rights after a lengthy delay. For example, laches would work against a patent owner that saw an infringing product emerge yet waited a decade to sue, after significant investment of time and resources had been put into the product.

The ruling in SCA follows a similar decision in Petrella v. MGM holding that laches is not available as a defense in copyright cases. The Supreme Court has generally rejected "patent exceptionalism" and has often reversed the Federal Circuit for creating special rules for patent law. So this week's decision was not especially surprising. In our view, however, there were compelling historical and policy arguments for retaining a laches defense in patent law.

Together with Public Knowledge, EFF filed an amicus brief at the Supreme Court explaining the many ways that companies accused of patent infringement can be harmed if the patent owner sleeps on its rights. For example, evidence relevant to invalidity can disappear. This is especially true for software and Internet-related patents. In his dissent, Justice Breyer cited our brief and explained:

[T]he passage of time may well harm patent defendants who wish to show a patent invalid by raising defenses of anticipation, obviousness, or insufficiency. These kinds of defenses can depend upon contemporaneous evidence that may be lost over time, and they arise far more frequently in patent cases than any of their counterparts do in copyright cases.

The seven justices in the majority suggested that patent defendants might be able to assert "equitable estoppel" instead of laches. But that would likely require showing that the patent owner somehow encouraged the defendant to infringe. In most cases, especially patent troll cases, the defendant has never even heard of the patent or the patent owner before receiving a demand. This means estoppel is unlikely to be much help. Ultimately, today's ruling is a victory for trolls who would wait in the shadows for years before using an obscure patent to tax those who do the hard work of bringing products and services to market.

Republished from the EFF's Deeplinks Blog

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Filed Under: copyright, laches, patent troll, patents, scotus, supreme court
Companies: first quality baby products, sca hygien


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  1. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 22 Mar 2017 @ 4:07pm

    Can that troll that recently lost its "lottery ticket" suit against Dropbox use this ruling in an appeal?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 22 Mar 2017 @ 4:29pm

    Re:

    That was a trademark case, which has always been covered by laches.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    AricTheRed, 22 Mar 2017 @ 4:57pm

    IF THEN

    If the Troll waits a year for the "Defendants" to make money on a product...

    Here is the joke formula

    IF(T=W) THEN(Award=$$$)
    IF(T≠W) THEN(Award=Legal Fees to be paid by Troll)

    Where:
    T=Time waiting by Troll
    W=fruitful work of Defendant
    $$$= Troll Payday!

    the actual excel formula is simpler...

    =IF(D2=F2,"=E2","'legal fees'")

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. icon
    CanadianByChoice (profile), 22 Mar 2017 @ 5:27pm

    Patents = Inovation?

    So, really, this tells innovators to not bother .. because someone ELSE is just going to come along with a patent (probably old, unheard-of and vague) and take it all away from you.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. icon
    discordian_eris (profile), 23 Mar 2017 @ 2:55am

    The Supremes entire decision can be boiled down to one word:

    Sophistry.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Wendy Cockcroft, 23 Mar 2017 @ 8:30am

    Re: Patents = Inovation?

    And this is where American innovation screams on its way down the plughole. Watch as China and the emerging Eastern economies leave you panting in their wake.

    Authoritarianism is everybody's problem!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    David Beckham, 25 Mar 2017 @ 7:40am

    Private property rights mattter more than innovation. Anyone who believes otherwise is socialist and anti-wealth.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    David Beckham, 25 Mar 2017 @ 7:41am

    Patent holders have a right to prevent infringers. Socialist scum.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. identicon
    David Beckham, 25 Mar 2017 @ 7:43am

    You people make me sick for not believing in the private property rights of patents.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. identicon
    David Beckham, 25 Mar 2017 @ 7:44am

    Articles like this also makes me sick. Bloody assholes

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. identicon
    john, 4 May 2017 @ 10:27am

    How much time patent trolls can wait

    How much time patent trolls can wait before suing. And how this will work for the patent holder.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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