The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday tightened rules for where patent lawsuits can be filed in a decision that may make it harder for so-called patent “trolls” to launch sometimes dodgy patent cases in friendly courts, a major irritant for high-tech giants like Apple and Alphabet Inc’s Google.
In a decision that upends 27 years of law governing patent infringement cases, the justices sided with beverage flavoring company TC Heartland LLC in its legal battle with food and beverage company Kraft Heinz Co. The justices ruled 8-0 that patent suits can be filed only in courts located in the jurisdiction where the targeted company is incorporated.
Good. That district in Texas is screwed.
This area is one of the very few wherein the interests of large corporations and of average American citizens are in harmony. Patent trolls are a scourge and a pestilence.
It’s about damn time.
Sounds like the companies will just then become incorporated in Texas…
“the targeted company”.
…as in, if a troll targets Microsoft, they have to sue in Washington state because that’s where Microsoft is headquartered.
Not quite. The location of the company’s headquarters is not necessarily where it’s incorporated. Delaware is a perfect example of this where both the legal and tax environment is extremely corporate friendly. Because of this, a large number of companies incorporate in Delaware but their headquarters is clearly somewhere else, and in fact, they may have no actual office at all in Deleware, maybe only a legal status there.
Huge businesses with $$$ to be made will find ways to game this system to their benefit. This could just as easily prompt a massive influx of companies registering and incorporating in the patent-friendly towns in Texas, even without changing anything with respect to where thier actual offices are located.
Point.
Still, Apple incorporating in Texas wouldn’t change the jurisdiction of some smaller software developer they’d want to patent-bully, so, under this ruling, that would only make it easier for them to attack other big enterprises that try the same trick.
The way I read the ruling, it is the defendant’s home turf that is the only place a lawsuit can be brought. If legitimate company A is based in San Francisco, patent troll company B must sue them in San Francisco and nowhere else.
They probably are limited to the state itself, but still is not Texas.
Many of these large tech companies aren’t merely defendants, many have been aggressors as well – it would be quite hypocritical of them to complain about the mess they lobbied for.
Oh well, hopefully in time we can return to some level of sanity and software can be protected by copyrights instead of patents, like it was originally supposed to be.
Defending your legitimate patent isn’t a problem (big tech companies do that)…its the patent trolls that are Non Practicing Entities (NPEs) that are the problem. They are the idiots that sue podcasters and owners of web sites to extort money.
modmans2ndcoming,
When you come up with the same idea independently (increasingly likely the more developers there are), it doesn’t matter who’s suing you, you are still being denied the fruits of your labor. This is why most of us are against software patents.
I’d been under the impression Texas in particular had been blowing patent trolls for years…