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Infringe at Will Culture Takes Hold

[wanttoknowwhy]

Infringe at Will Culture Takes Hold as America’s Patent System Erodes

By Gene Quinn & Peter Harter 
January 17, 2017

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Efficient infringement occurs because it can. The efficient infringer makes a business calculation that it will be cheaper to steal patented technology than to license it and pay a fair royalty to the innovator. It is cheaper to steal from anyone rather than to design or invent around, to disrupt, to compete on the merits. Of course, it is easiest to steal from a startup because their venture-backed timing will not allow them to outlast the deeper pocketed patent thief. Indeed, this model works exceptionally well for a variety of reasons.

As awful as the era of efficient infringement has been, the sad reality for the U.S. patent system is the worst may still be in front of us. We may be moving from the efficient infringement era and into the “infringe at will” era.  With the eBay decision now over 10 years old and virtually no one getting injunctions in the United States anymore, it seems that any management team or board of directors would be utterly insane to settle and pay for patents.

Why pay for patents when you know that you won’t be stopped with an injunction? Why pay for patents when there are myriad of challenges that can be brought to cripple any portfolio no matter how big or how strong? The U.S. patent system has so eroded over the last decade thanks to the handy work of several dozen giant tech and bank companies – lead by Google – that one has to seriously wonder whether executives from those companies haven’t already opened themselves up to shareholder liability.

https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2017/01/17/infringe-culture-takes-hold-americas-patent-system-erodes/id=77119/