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Intellectual Property

Apr. 18, 2013

New patent office proceedings: preventing collateral damage

Although the White House enthused that the AIA would offer new ways to avoid patent litigation, the law of unintended consequences may have slipped in the back door.

Vernon M. Winters

Partner, Sidley Austin LLP

Email: winters@sidley.com

UC Hastings COL; San Francisco CA

Ambrose Bierce once defined a litigant as a person about to give up his skin to save his bones. That often describes patent litigation. Make no mistake: Often patent litigation is warranted. But in too many cases, it is not. It is too often a cynical (and, one must begrudgingly observe, entirely lawful) effort to transfer money from companies that provide desired goods and services to entities whose principal function is to buy patents for lawsuits.

Such cynical efforts follow a p...

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