Challenging or Infringing Another's Business Method Patent
When another company holds a patent on technology you need to use, learn your options.
Many think the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has gone hogwild granting business method patents on obvious technologies and abstract ideas, unfairly preventing others from using them for the common good. If you find yourself in this boat, there are a few things you can do.
There are two ways to challenge business method patents after they are granted. You can sue in federal court or institute a procedure in the USPTO known as a re-examination.
Filing a lawsuit in federal court can be expensive (often costing hundreds of thousand dollars and sometimes running into the millions), but some companies choose to fight it out in the hopes that they can invalidate the adversary's business method patent. The challenging party normally seeks to prove the patented process was not novel or was obvious, and therefore that the USPTO shouldn't have issued the patent. This is usually done by demonstrating that the patent examiner overlooked important prior art.
Initiating a re-examination procedure with the USPTO can also invalidate a patent. The USPTO will reconsider the patent in light of recently uncovered prior art. A re-examination is not as costly as litigation. But if re-examination fails and the patent survives, the patent will be "strengthened" to the extent that others will be less likely to challenge it and the patent owner will feel more confident enforcing it.
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