Patent Attorney and Founder
Everyone I’m JD Houvener your host of the bold today’s show were you the inventor entrepreneur or business owner get your daily inspiration to make the world a better place all right we’re in the middle of our 10-part litigation series this is about patent litigation and just yesterday we looked at the primary statute that covers direct infringement today we’re talking about what’s called induced infringement and it’s a mechanism that came about in a case that is sort of like a supply chain and a defendant was trying to get around the rules right create a loophole in the infringement statute and so now under 35 USC 271 B inducement is still a wet vehicle that the defendant can be held liable for infringement even if they actually weren’t the ones doing the indirect infringement so think of a scenario let’s say a tire manufacturer okay it actually gets produced most of the tire does in let’s say China it gets distributed over the Pacific Ocean and the treads are assembled to the main part of the rubber here in the US okay and that’s done by a third party okay so party a distributes it the raw materials to party B here in the US and by doing that they have knowledge of the patent and the reason why they’re shipping parts is because they know that the entirety of that tire is covered under a pad and so they do that what they’re doing is they’re inducing party B to be the direct infringer and so when those two components are combined and then that’s sold to the general public or to a third party retailer that’s when infringement occurs so a plaintiff that would stay the patent holder or a company that now has been assigned the rights has the ability to go after both party B and party a for direct infringement there are some elements that need to be shown one of the most important ones is that they’re actually must be direct infringement and so under the scenario I painted before if party B actually never sells that tire and they actually never combine those two elements into that one particular piece that’s patented there truly is no infringement and so there was no there’s no underlying liability there so the the plaintiff in this case would still need to show some of those core elements but as but if they can point to the fact that party be made use sold or imported into the u.s. anything that’s covered under their patent claims everyone in that chain of title chain-of-command is likely going to be held liable so this is an interesting subject for you you’ve got a patent that’s already been issued you want to get more information about your enforcement options or maybe your way back hit the early phase and you still come up with ideas that’s fine too and you want to get a hold of someone and just sort of start the process give us a call at
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