If someone infringes your patent, you have the right to assert your rights through a lawsuit. If you win, you may be able to receive compensation for damages, and the court can also issue a court order that prevents the other person from continuing to use your invention. Most patent holders start by negotiating with the infringer because enforcing a patent is a long and expensive procedure. Negotiations often end when the offender agrees to pay a license fee to the patent owner so that they can continue to use the invention.
If negotiations fail, the patent owner will have to determine that there is an infringement and file an action in federal court to enforce the patent. To assert your patent rights against infringers, you must sue them in civil court. This process can be lengthy and expensive, but it is essential to protect your intellectual property from any infringement. The person or company filing the lawsuit is the “plaintiff” and the party accused of patent infringement is the “defendant”.
You will need to prove in court that the patent is invalid and that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) should not have issued the patent in the first place. In certain cases, such as when the patent covers an essential feature of the device, injunctions may require licensees to pay higher royalties than they would have paid if they had not been threatened with litigation. Once the licensee has full legal authority to sue on their own behalf, the patent owner can negotiate the details of those litigation rights. Specifically, they will analyze issues such as exclusivity, control of litigation decisions, duration and scope of use of patents, transferability and distribution of damages.
Now let's suppose that a well-known IT company decides to use your patented inventions in its music storage software without paying the corresponding license fees. The license must also include the exclusive right to prohibit the licensee from practicing the patented invention in certain areas. The company announced that it would not enforce these patents in an effort to allow other companies to develop the necessary vaccines themselves. This higher royalty is beneficial to patent holders, as it allows them to recover development costs and ensure an adequate return on investment.
To be clear, a patent agent is not a lawyer and cannot represent you in court; that is the job of a patent attorney. In general, injunctions are considered to be one of the most effective remedies available against patent infringement and non-compliance.
