Possible Victory For WDP over SP.....

[RingOfScale]

i had almost forgoten about this whole thing until this came back up ...
but...

VERY COOL ! lets go all laugh in SPs face ...

[AcemanPB]

I don't know if this has already been asked but will we see more vikings now? Is ICD going to come back?

[RRfireblade]

In a nutshell, despite the massive celebrating and cheers being heard around the boards.....NOTHING at all has changed for any of the currently involved or potentially involved parties.

The ONLY change is that there are now 2 companies with the full legal backing to force the industry to pay it's ransome.In reality this may very likely make things even worse for everyone involved.......besides SP and WDP that is.

[KRAKMT]

[rabidchihauhau]

stop reading for a weekend and look what happens.....

Here's my take on the current situation (I deal with IP and the PB industry all day long):

WDP wanted to clear this case up with the hopes of weakening SP's control of tech in other issued patents. They had a small zinger waiting in the wings (Hensel) and asked for summary judgement.

Of course this will be appealed - the question is, how much of this can they use going forward with the other cases...?

In kmoving forward with final resolution of the case at hand: WDP would be foolish to press for anything other than as much 'ownership' as they can justify. But here's the thing: just what was Hensel's ownership interest? Was he in a position (at Pneu-Ventures) to have nay-sayed an assignment or sale?

I suspect that it will resolve that WDP will receive a payment from SP in the amount of x% of all royalties/licensing fees paid to date. The complicating factor being the terms of SP's licensing agreements; are the licensees obtaining rights in all of the SP holdings, or only on specific ones?

Following that payment, I don't see how they can work things out with the two companies jointly licensing the property; all WDP has to do is undercut SP's fees; then SP does the same back...

They'll probably have to establish some kind of trust or consortium to manage the property, with each company receiving their 'proper' percentage.

I am more interested though in how things move forward with the remainder of the cases and the patents; is WDP set on unravelling them one by one? Does this sound familiar? Go after the weakest first to establish precedent in the later cases...?

I have a feeling that we're going to see complications over the 'filing in UK/filing in the US' issues, as different patents were granted to either party while similar patents were granting in the foreign office...

All we can say for sure is, this is not over yet.

[KRAKMT]

I am not sure how the law will playout regarding whom has the power to license. As co-owner I would think it would have to be licensed for the most benefit. Similar to a marketing agreement for a patent. Reasonable efforts must be made to bring the product to market and if not then the agreement can be revoked. Now as you note what was actually licensed? Was it all or part of this patent or all patents or what. That has been a secret between the principals and I am sure they are either crying or laughing about it. I am unable to forsee how this will affect us. The parties may battle over who gets what part of the pie but we are stuck supplying the filling.
And as to any other patent, there is little actual patent law outside conception/reduction to practice involved. As to prior art or infringment the ruling is irrelevant.

Was he in a position (at Pneu-Ventures) to have nay-sayed an assignment or sale?

I suspect that it will resolve that WDP will receive a payment from SP in the amount of x% of all royalties/licensing fees paid to date. The complicating factor being the terms of SP's licensing agreements; are the licensees obtaining rights in all of the SP holdings, or only on specific ones?

Following that payment, I don't see how they can work things out with the two companies jointly licensing the property; all WDP has to do is undercut SP's fees; then SP does the same back...

They'll probably have to establish some kind of trust or consortium to manage the property, with each company receiving their 'proper' percentage.

.

[rabidchihauhau]

True - there is no direct effect of this ruling on any other patents issued to SP; however, many of the SP patent's contain language which is 'self-defining'; that is, they name a mechanism or device (widget) and never provide any specification within their teachings, leaving them with the ability to say 'that's what we meant by a widget' if the claims are challenged.

I've watched the evolution of their patent applications for several years now; they belong generally to the school of 'broader and more vague, even if its weaker under a challenge', presumably hoping that the art is so arcane, new and confusing, or, expenses for challenging are so high, that they'll never have to better define their terms and admit that some newly created widget couldn't have been anticipated by their definition.

Dr. Hensel's lab notes, on the other hand (and we now have it on record that he's really the only named inventor who could have done the work) could be very revealing if he's asked 'what did you mean by a widget?'

Its pretty obvious that WDP had to do some real legwork in order to turn up Hensel (unless he's so pissed about the Pneu-Ventures bs that he sought out WDP - and that I doubt as I'm pretty sure SP would have gotten wind of it first) and they paid a decent sum up front (who knows what Hensel's back-end is) for this not to be the opening shot in a longer-term WDP strategy for dealing with this issue.

The SP patents have been reviewed by numerous patent attorneys and the language used to describe them has ranged from 'I can't believe this granted' to 'they are very, very weak', 'I would never have written the claims this way' with not much else on the other side to contradict those feelings. I suspect that WDP is just beginning to chip away at them and that we'll see Hensel "rear his ugly head" again in the not too distant future.