{"id":1253,"date":"2009-12-08T08:35:37","date_gmt":"2009-12-08T14:35:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/?p=1253"},"modified":"2009-12-08T08:35:37","modified_gmt":"2009-12-08T14:35:37","slug":"hewlett-packard-co-v-acceleron-llc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/?p=1253","title":{"rendered":"Hewlett Packard Co. v. Acceleron LLC"},"content":{"rendered":"

All patent owners are equal under the law.\u00a0 After the Hewlett Packard Co. v. Acceleron LLC<\/span> decision, however,\u00a0some\u00a0are more equal than others.\u00a0 In Hewlett Packard Co. v. Acceleron LLC<\/span>, the Federal Circuit took note of the fact that the patent owner was\u00a0“solely a licensing entity”\u00a0in assessing whether HP was entitled to bring a declaratory judgment action.\u00a0 When a patent owner is a\u00a0patent holding company, one is now entitled to consider that as a relevant\u00a0factor in assessing whether a court has declaratory judgment jurisdiction.<\/p>\n

One might think that the panel that decided the case frowned upon patent holding companies.\u00a0 However, according to these remarks by Chief Judge Michel during the oral argument, such is not the case: [Listen<\/a>].\u00a0<\/p>\n

Chief Judge Michel seemed frustrated by the vague language used by the US Supreme Court in its Medimmune v. Genentech<\/span>, 549 US 118 (2007) decision for\u00a0evaluating when it is proper for a party to bring a declaratory judgment action: [Listen<\/a>].<\/p>\n

This case now begs the question of what constitutes “solely a licensing entity.”\u00a0 Is an independent inventor who doesn’t practice his or her patent solely a licensing entity?\u00a0 Is it sufficient if he or she simply doesn’t practice one claim of the patent, since each patent claim in theory stands on its own?\u00a0 Is a research institution a patent holding company? Is the US government a patent troll?\u00a0 Is IBM, the leader in obtaining US patents, solely a licensing entity with respect to its patents that it doesn’t implement?\u00a0 And, perhaps most importantly, will this special recognition of entities that are soley focused on licensing their patents,\u00a0make it easier or more difficult for them to obtain injunctions for patent infringement?<\/p>\n

It will be interesting to see in\u00a0the next\u00a0few months if there is a surge in filings of declaratory judgment actions based on this case and past correspondence by patent owners.<\/p>\n

You can read the court’s decision here: [Read<\/a>].<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All patent owners are equal under the law.\u00a0 After the Hewlett Packard Co. v. Acceleron LLC decision, however,\u00a0some\u00a0are more equal than others.\u00a0 In Hewlett Packard Co. v. Acceleron LLC, the Federal Circuit took note of the fact that the patent owner was\u00a0“solely a licensing entity”\u00a0in assessing whether HP was entitled to bring a declaratory judgment […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1253"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1253"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1277,"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1253\/revisions\/1277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}