Monday, May 15, 2006

Patent Grendels meet Beowulf

A recent Supreme Court ruling appears to give large manufacturers a stronger hand against "Patent Trolls" by establishing a higher bar for issuance of a preliminary injunction. A new four-factor test now requires a plaintiff to show that harm to their business outweighs harm to the defendant in order to receive the injunction.

Since most patent-portfolio companies have no business (other than enforcing patents), this makes the likelihood of receiving an injuction much less, meaning corporates now have much more incentive to let it play out and go to trial.

This is good news for big corporates and cross-licensing, but bad news for patent reform.

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