In the old days we had Ole Nilssen. He wore funny shoes and walked around LIGHTFAIR looking for patent violations. We all kind of made fun of him, but he was a money-generating machine.
Patent law has always been tricky. If a case was not settled and went to court, high power attorneys would find themselves explaining technical details to lay people who often could not comprehend the case. Historically, we are told that Philips Lighting has settled every patent. These settlements were private and neither party would be allowed to disclose details. This worked in Philips Lightig favor as it prevented other parties from seeing any weaknesses in their patent portfolio.
In 2011 the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) was created to strengthen the patent system. Lawmakers hoped to avoid the need for patent lawsuits by giving patent holders and challengers a quick and inexpensive way to resolve disputes as an alternative to lengthy litigation.
EdisonReport has received many complaints over the years about Philips Lighting and the way they were enforcing patents—even on their own customers. One of those customers was WAC Lighting.
Philips sued WAC Lighting for several alleged patent violations. Instead of settling with Philips—as most have done (one count is 600)—WAC took its case to the PTAB and last week the PTAB gave them what appears to be a huge victory. EdisonReport initially covered this in an April 2014 article.
Below are the results with the appropriate PDF Links.
1. ‘458 Denied
2. ‘988 Instituted (claims 1 and 2)
3. ‘774 instituted (claims 1, 3, 5 and 14)
4. ‘690 Partial Institution (claim 1) but not claims 5 and 6.
5. ‘890 Partial Institution (claims 15 and 23) but not claims 7 and 31.
6. ‘138 Instituted (claims 1, 2, 9, 10, 11, 20, 21, 31, 33 and 34)
7. ‘399 (claims 7, 8, 17, 18, 28 and 34)
Here is why the PTAB is so important. Because of the above links, other companies can now fight Philips and know the weaknesses in the portfolio. In the old days, when these were settled, each new defendant would have to start from ground zero. Now attorneys will be able to build upon the WAC results.
As we go to press, we are told that Philips has now withdrawn two of their patents, where they have been pursuing WAC and others. To our knowledge this is a first.
While EdisonReport is a strong believer in the value of IP, we do think the pendulum has swung too far and that many of these patents are too general; they stifle innovation, and create a type of tax on the industry.