Patent attorneys can be quite specific in determining when an invention was made, in the legal sense. Normally, assignment contracts cover only inventions made during the course of employment or for a reasonable time after employment. When an engineer leaves a job, on-the-record exit interviews are often quite helpful to all concerned to define the respective rights of the engineer and the former employer.
ENFORCEMENT OF A PATENT
While the patent grant makes the information in the application available to the public, the inventor has the right to prevent others from making, using, selling, or importing into the United States what is claimed for as long as the patent remains in force. Patents are enforced in the United States against private parties by the filing of a civil action in the U.S. District Courts around the country.6 Actions for infringement by the U.S. government must be filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C. All appeals in patent cases — whether from the District Courts, the ITC, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, or the U.S. PTO — are heard and decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington. In turn, appeals from that Court can be taken to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the U.S. Supreme Court decides relatively few patent cases.
Enforcing a patent in litigation can be expensive and time consuming. For corporations, it involves a significant but normal business expense; but for independent inventors, the costs of litigating a patent may require entering into a joint venture or otherwise seeking financial support.
In determining whether one’s patent is being infringed, one would look to the normal and appropriate sources of corporate intelligence: trade shows, technical literature, advertising, sales and marketing information, etc. Once a potential infringement is suspected, an inventor should immediately seek the advice of a knowledgeable patent attorney. Failure to approach the suspected infringer properly could result in the inventor being sued in what’s called a Declaratory Judgment action to hold the patent non-infringed, invalid, or unenforceable. Once litigation is begun, the rules of federal discovery require that each side be thoroughly informed of all relevant information regarding the inventor’s and the alleged infringer’s records and actions.
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