Native American Nation Shielded From Patent Infringement Claims
from the opportunity? dept
Joe Mullin points us to the news of how the Quapaw Tribe of Oklahoma succeeded in having a patent infringement case against the tribe dismissed, due to the sovereign immunity of the Native American nation. The ruling (embedded below) is pretty straightforward. Basically, it notes that sovereign immunity is well established for Native American nations and that there's nothing that appears to remove that immunity in this case. Of course, this leads to a variety of questions about whether or not the various tribal nations might sense an opportunity (as many did with casinos) to create "patent autonomous zones" directly within the borders of the United States. That might make for an interesting scenario...Filed Under: patents, quapaw, sovereign immunity
