Court Agrees That Lemelson Patents More Science Fiction Than Science Innovation
from the maybe-he-can-win-a-nebula-award dept
Last month we pointed to articles concerning the legacy of Jerome Lemelson, and whether he was a patent hoarder who patented “science fiction” ideas or a visionary inventor. The second part of the article focused on the lawsuit against Lemelson, which was being pursued by someone who wasn’t even being sued by Lemelson’s lawyers, but whose customers were. Even though many people couldn’t understand why this guy was suing over the legitimacy of these patents, he felt that it was important to stand up to a patent bully on principle. And, it’s looking like he won. A Federal Appeals court has upheld the ruling invalidating some “key” patents of Lemelson’s that were being used to extract tons of cash from companies who were doing the actual innovating and actually getting products to market that had little, if anything, to do with the ideas in the patent.
Comments on “Court Agrees That Lemelson Patents More Science Fiction Than Science Innovation”
51 years later...
So just over a half-century later, the courts have finally ruled that some of the Lemelson patents are invalid. Glad to see that the patent system is working likely a finely tuned and oiled machine – NOT.