Possible Outcomes to Your Patent Suit
Article Written By: markus
There are many possible outcomes to a patent suit. (or, more formally and correctly, a patent infringement lawsuit).
Victory at Trial : It is possible that your case will go to trial, and you'll be winning. In a patent suit, the jury will have to make 3 calls :
One. Is the patent valid and enforceable?
Two. Did the defendant actually did infringe your patent?
Three. If the defendant did, what damages are going to be awarded? The excellent news is a jury verdict is a gratifying vindication of your claim of patent infringement. The bad news is the losing defendant can file an appeal, and that may delay payment of any award. The defendant may achieve success in getting the original verdict overturned, in which case the entire process fundamentally starts all over again! As you may learn, victory after a trial is an improbable result as only a tiny share of patent infringement suits really go to trial.
Defeat at Trial : it's also possible that your patent suit will go to trial and you can lose.
The jury will rule the patent was invalid or unenforceable, or that defendant did NOT infringe your patent, so that the defendant owes you nothing! You might appeal the verdict, but you can't appeal a jury verdict because you didn't like the result of the trial. Your attorney must identify a mistake made by the judge, and convince an appellate court the mistake was major enough that it influenced the result of the trial. Appealing a jury verdict, and then re-trying the case, will be Extraordinarily dear and will take years. This is also a doubtful result as only a few patent infringement suits really go to trial.
Dismissal : It is possible the judge may dismiss your patent infringement claim. This is non common, but it is possible the defendant's attorney will persuade the judge that you fundamentally don't have a case and you are wasting the court's time.
Abandon the Suit : it's also possible that you and your attorney will decide to desert your claim. You can reach the belief that you will lose at trial, or you will run out of cash if you are funding the law yourself, and you don't have any alternative but to stroll away as you can't put any more cash into the case.
Out-of-Court Settlement : the most probable result of most kinds of civil litigation is an out-of-court settlement. The complainant and defendant and their attorneys meet and hash out a settlement that everyone can live with. When you go to trial, either side can win enormous or lose gigantic, and that is risky and frightful. So the likeliest result, if you and your attorney have been aggressively prosecuting your claim, is that at some point the parties will agree to meet and debate a settlement. The issue is this sometimes may happen later than earlier. Both sides will hang tricky for the initial few months, looking to wear down the opposite side. The defendant will first try and get the suit discharged ( that is the perfect result for the claimed infringer ), and failing that, try and wear down the complainant and force him to desert his claim. While both sides will play difficult, assured of an auspicious jury verdict, neither side actually wants to go to trial. As a consequence, an out-of-court settlement may not be reached till some weeks or days before the trial starts, and that may be months or years into the legal process. Some out-of-court agreements are basically reached in the trial! The benefit of an out-of-court settlement is that there are no surprises, and while a jury verdict and award is a matter of official record, an out-of-court settlement is a personal agreement between the parties. Also, unlike a jury verdict and award, an out-of-court settlement cannot be appealed. It's a last agreement.
Binding Arbitration: A variation on an out-of-court settlement is binding settlement. Both sides agree they don't need to go to trial, but they can't reach a settlement, so they turn their dispute over to a 3rd party, and the 3rd party comes up with a settlement that is binding on both parties. The Yankee settlement organisation was set up many years back to provide just such services. Since binding settlement is also an out-of-court settlement, the outcome of the settlement are known only to the parties to the lawsuit.
About the Author
Glen Anderson is a business consultant who writes about intellectual property, patent infringement lawsuit, product licensing and other business and innovation-related topics.
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This Article Has Been Published on Thu, 28 May 2009 and Read 184 Times
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