Lemelson Appeals & Loses
Fish & Neave (now merged with Ropes & Gray effective January 1, 2005) argued the Lemelson case to the appeals court at the beginning of June 2005. No action is expected this year.SURPRISE!! The case was so clear cut that the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has already issued its ruling, affirming the correctness of Judge Pro's rulings. Circuit Judge, Lourie, issued the finding September 9, 2005. I have a *.pdf file of the ruling if anyone is interested.
Important Points and Comments with regard to Lemelson's defeat.
Judge Pro of the United States District Court, District of Nevada gets it right January 23, 2004 !!
Here you will find the "Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law" and his "Judgement"
Mr. Lemelson was one of the worst abusers of the US patent system. Mainly due to his abuse, Congress passed laws in 1995 and 1999 to prevent "submarine patents". Judge Pro's ruling confirms these new laws. An article titled Judge scuttles patent attacks appeared in the March 2004 issue of Electronic Business, by Bill Roberts. The article does an excellent job of explaining the ramification of his decision.
We are all indebted to Mr. Jesse Jenner and his team at the law firm of FISH & NEAVE, 1251 Avenue of the Americas , New York, NY 10020 who prosecuted this case. All companies and consumers will benefit from the decision. Fish & Neave's News & Events" January 23, 2004
Mr. Jerome Lemelson has finally been stopped. IP Law & Business published the article Breaking the (Bar) Code* in their March 2004 issue. This article has a timeline of events starting in 1953 and continuing through the January 23, 2004 ruling by Judge Phillip Pro. The article explains how the executives of companies, such as Ford and IBM, allowed their companies to be blackmailed rather than fight the culprit in court. These executives of these companies were more interested in their bottom line than preserving what is right and fair. .
Arthur Lieberman who represented Mr. Lemelson until 1989 said, "...Lemelson didn't patent inventions, he invented patents." A key point was won by Mr. Jenner in 1996 when Judge Lloyd George declared Lemelson's patents unenforceable. However, this ruling was overturned by another federal judge who said "... a patent applicant should not be penalized for exploiting the rules." The extortion continued.
It took two small companies, Cognex Corp. and Symbol Technologies, whose very existence was threatened, to stop this coercion which had already extorted $1.5 billion from various bar code users. Mr. Jenner of the law firm of Fish & Neave, (along with his team which included William McCabe, Steven Cherny, Albert Fey, Pablo Hendler, and Krista Rycroft to name a few) prevailed after more than five years of litigation.
Although the abuse of the system has now been halted, Mr. Hosier (the lawyer for the Lemelson Foundation) made the following comments at the end of the trial. "The judge ruled the way he did and you've gotta live with it and move forward with life." He certainly is not about to start handing out refunds to the 900 or so companies that have paid the foundation licensing fees. "These were eyes-open deals. You pay your money and you take your chances" said Mr. Hosier.
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Revised: November 2016