Patents

Points To Consider Before Filing A Suit For Infringement Of Your Patent

Patents offer an inventor the authority to prevent others from making use of his or her invention for their own commercial advantage through illegal means. They give the inventor the right to sue a person or a company for infringement of his invention or its manufacturing process. However, you must keep certain essential aspects in mind when looking for a legal action to deal with the problem of infringement.

First, you need to ensure that the said infringement is a literal infringement of your patent. In other words, the infringing product must have imitated all aspects of your original product. Although in special cases where some of the aspects of the invention have not been copied, it can still be considered as an infringement. However, you will have to provide valid proof that the major aspects of the imitation are same as the patented product in all elements and yield the same outcome as the patented product.

Secondly, you cannot be a third party and file a suit against the alleged offender, which means that you must have some direct connection with the patent. You can either be the owner of the patented product or a licensee – exclusive or partial – of the product in order to be eligible for filing a suit for infringement. Further, in order to ensure that your suit is admitted for hearing, you need to file the suit within the time prescribed under the limitation laws of your government.

Though, you have an option of prosecuting the owner or even the user of the counterfeit product, you can file such a lawsuit only when the patent has not already expired. Once the span of patent has expired, no legal action can be taken against any infringement.

Last but not the least, though patents stand on the strict liability principle, you must remember that the usage of a patent for research purposes is permitted and it does not constitute an infringement.