South Carolina Business Law Blog

A bill pending in the South Carolina General Assembly that would make "bad faith assertions of patent infringement" an "unfair trade practice" under South Carolina law got a "jurisdictional boost" from a recent Opinion and Order issued by a Vermont Federal Court judge. Background The actions of patent-assertion entities (PAEs) that purportedly own patents and use litigation and the threat of litigation to enforce them are well-documented.  (For a brief description of the topic and some additional resources, click here ). PAEs are referred to by their detractors as "patent trolls." As a general proposition, patent law is exclusively federal in nature.  Congress has given the U.S. district courts original and exclusive jurisdiction, pursuant to 28 U.S. Section 1338 , over any civil action related to patents. As a result, litigation involving the validity, infringement, and enforcement of patents must take place in federal district court. V

By Jack Pringle Patents provide important intellectual property (IP) protection for inventors. Determining whether something you create is considered a patentable invention, and obtaining a patent through the USPTO is a complicated process. The University of South Carolina Office of Intellectual Property offers some Resources for Inventors that may be helpful in understanding the patent process and the way IP is licensed. I read from time to time about patent infringement litigation, and particularly those cases where a "non-practicing entity" (a company that owns a patent but has not developed a product that actually uses it) seeks damages from a company who (not coincidentally) has substantial revenues and market capitalization. Perhaps the most famous of these cases to date was NTP's action against Research In Motion , the maker of the Blackberry. Like many who follow these cases, I am interested in the legal and policy rationales for allowing an entity tha