Patent litigation is the process through which a patent owner who believes a patent has been violated or infringed by another party asks a court to rule regarding the infringement, enter a judgment against the infringing defendant, and award damages. In the United States patent litigation typically takes place in federal district courts, although other tribunals sometimes preside over a patent owner’s allegation, such as The US International Trade Commission in Washington, DC.

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Patents convey the right to exclude others from making, using or selling the inventions claimed in the patents in the country or countries that issued the patents. To enjoy the benefits of these patent rights, your business should own its patents. However, under U.S. law, only an inventor or an assignee can own a patent and businesses cannot be listed as an inventor. Patent assignment is the legal mechanism to transfer ownership from inventors to your business or from one business to another.

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A patent application includes certain important sections that include, for example, the abstract, the specification, the drawings, and the claims. Each of these sections can be important in understanding an invention, but it is the claims that describe the legal metes and bounds of a particular invention. Accordingly, it is important that each section is well-drafted to provide the best support for the claims; it will be the claims that will be most scrutinized by the USPTO during examination of the patent application.

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Patents convey the right to exclude others from making, using or selling the inventions claimed in the patents in the country or countries that issued the patents. A patent owner may choose to retain those rights to prevent others from practicing the inventions, particularly when those inventions are embodied in products produced or services provided by the patent owner. Alternately or additionally, the patent owner may instead choose to license some or all of those rights to other entities to generate licensing revenues. Depending on the licensing strategy, license agreements may convey exclusive rights to a single licensee or non-exclusive rights to multiple licensees.

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Development of a wide range of technologies are based on technical standards adopted by industry organizations in coordination with the companies responsible for the development of the technology and the products that ultimately incorporate and apply the industry standard. Early adoption and consistent application of industry standards for a technology allows consumers to have confidence that products incorporating the standard will be interoperable with each other and any content conforming to the standard and produced for use with those products.

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Patents grant the exclusive right to make, use, and sell an invention. But such rights are limited to the jurisdictions that grant them. For example, United States patent rights do not extend beyond its borders. In order to obtain patent protection outside of the United States, patent applications must be filed outside of the US. Filing in the US and in foreign jurisdictions can be very expensive. Accordingly, inventors must decide on a the best investment strategy for protecting their invention, marketing and developing their product lines, and maintaining or increasing the valuation of their company short- or long-term.

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