Patent Trolling Incidents in Recent History

‘Patent troll’ is a negative term that is used to describe an entity, which can be a company or an individual, who challenges the scope of patent rights against suspected infringers beyond the real worth of the patent.

As this practice became widely known among attorneys and lawyers, cases involving patent trolling or abuse started to make headlines in web based news stories. This resulted in increased awareness among the masses, but as too many stories appeared in such a short span of time, it became hard for the public to remain interested for long.

Listed below are two high profile patent abuse incidents. You can learn a lot about this practice by understanding how these cases played out.

Apple vs Google

These two Silicon Valley giants signed a landmark agreement in 2014 that settled all outstanding patent litigations among them. According to their joint statement to TIME, the companies were said to ‘dismiss all the current lawsuits that exist directly between the two companies’. Moreover, they also agreed to work together in some areas of patent reform, however, this didn’t include licensing their technology to each other.

Oracle vs Google

Originally, Java was developed by Sun Microsystems in 1991, and Sun was sold to Oracle in 2010. Android Inc. was founded in 2003 and was sold to Google in 2005. In 2007, Google released the beta of the Android system, indicating that it would use some of the Java technologies, and was congratulated by then Sun CEO the very same day. Google released the android SDK in November 2007, and negotiated with Sun over possible licensing deals for Java, but no agreement was reached. After Oracle purchased Sun, licensing deals were still under discussion, without any final agreement. Oracle went ahead and sued Google for copyright and patent infringement in 2010.

In May 2012, the jury found that Google did not infringe Oracle’s patents, and the trial judge ruled that Java APIs used by Google were not copyrightable. The agreement was reached on zero dollars in damages. But in 2014, the case was reopened and the Federal Circuit partially reversed the court ruling in Oracle’s favor. This case is still in court and the final verdict has not been reached yet.

While these famous patent trolling incidents may be an interesting read, you need to make sure your intellectual and innovative ideas stay protected against infringement.

Patentec is an Australia based patenting firm with top notch lawyers and attorneys operating under a strict moral and ethical code. At Patentec, we offer individualized, sensibly capped-fees, and expert experience in patenting in Australia. We extensively guide our clients in legal matters so that they do not become a victim of patent trolling. For more information, visit our website or contact us

Intellectual Property rights- Myths Vs facts

IP protection may be confusing for newcomers, especially given the amount of incorrect information and opinions published on the Internet.

Here are a few common myths about IP protection that you should be aware of:

Myth#1- A Patent Grants Worldwide Protection

Patent rights are national rights. Therefore you must obtain a valid patent in each country in which you want enforceable rightsto exclude others from exploiting your invention.

Generally, the patent process entails the filing of a priority application and the filing of foreign applications (or the PCT application) within 12 months of having filed the priority application.

Specifically, the patent process may entail the filing of a provisional patent application in Australia followed by the filing of foreign patent applications within 12 months of the filing of the provisional application, such as in countries such as the US, Europe and the like. For countries which are not nominated within this 12 month period, it no longer becomes possible to obtain patent protection having the earliest priority date in these countries.

Myth#2-A Business Automatically Owns All Intellectual Property Created By Employees

Many business owners believe that once they hire an employee or contractor they own the full rights to their work. However, this isn’t true unless the contract states out in clear words that the company owns the rights to any intellectual property created by the employee or contractor. Conversely, entrepreneurs may be surprised to find out that they have no or limited rights to their work.

In general terms, the common-law position in Australia, is that the employer owns invention is performed by employees specifically hired to invent, or for inventions borne from tasks specifically assigned to employees. To vary this common-law position, IP ownership should be specified in the employee contract.

Myth#3-if I can’t find a patent, then the invention is free to exploit

Given various IP agreements between countries, it is possible for foreign applicants to file a patent rights within certain jurisdictions within certain timeframes from having filed foreign applications.

For example, a company may search the Australian patent database and form the erroneous opinion that should no patent be found, then the company is free to exploit the invention. Specifically, if an inventor had filed a Chinese application, then the Chinese inventor has 12 months in which to file a corresponding Australian application in which case the Australian patent application will be given the same filing date is the Chinese application, which may be subsequently used to find an enforceable position against the Australian company. Furthermore, using the PCT (patent cooperation Treaty) convention, foreign applicants have up to 31 months in which to file corresponding patent applications in Australia.

Myth#4 - if I file a patent, someone can work around it simply by changing the invention by 10%

This is not true. Patent attorneys are trained to draft patent claims that avoid trivial workarounds. For example, a well drafted patent claim will change essential features of the invention, so that no other person, including those making variations such as additions to the invention will be able to work around the patent claim.

Myth#5 - a patent specification must be generally worded so as to give the broadest protection

This is also not true. A patent specification comprises two parts, the detailed description and the claimed invention. Now, the scope of monopoly of the patent is determined by the claims. As such, it is the claims that are written broadly. However, it is vital that the detailed description be detailed. The reason is that, during examination, should the examiner find related art potentially destroying the novelty or inventive step of the invention, any technical aspect a point of difference described anywhere in the patent specification may be used to distinguish the patent claim from the prior art.

As such, the general rule is that patent specifications, especially the first filed patent specification must be as detailed as is reasonably possible.

Intellectual property matters have little to no room for error and there should always be a smart strategy in every case. If you are looking forward to a trusted solution to protecting your intellectual property rights, give us a call and we will connect with you some of the top patent attorneys in the industry!