What happens if I infringe someone’s patent?
Generally, if you are
infringing someone’s patent, the
patent owner will either contact you informally to resolve the situation or
he’ll file a lawsuit against you. If you are sued by the patent owner, he
will typically seek an injunction and/or financial damages. If this happens,
you should review the patent in question, particularly the patent’s claims, to make your own determination
as to whether you think you might be infringing the patent. It would be a
good idea to consult a patent
attorney to help in this
process.
If it looks like the
patent may be infringed, you have several options. First, you can stop
making and selling the infringing product. This may be all the patent
owner was interested in - getting the infringement to stop. However, if
the patent owner wants damages,
this may not resolve the conflict. Second, you can talk to the patent owner and
attempt to negotiate a license to essentially buy legal permission to
continue making and selling the product. Third, you can carefully review
the patent’s claims to see if there is a way you can change your product so
that one or more elements of the claims are missing, which would mean your
product no longer infringes the patent (although you might still be liable for
your infringement up to the point you made this change). Finally, in
defense to an infringement lawsuit, you can attempt to have the patent invalidated by arguing that it does not meet one
of the basic requirements necessary for a patent to be granted
in the first place.
.
Posted in: FAQ-PATENTS
