Patent Attorney and Founder
Hi everyone, I’m J.D. Houvener, your host of the Bold Today’s Show. For you, the inventor, entrepreneur, business owner, get your daily dose of inspiration to make the world a better place. Happy Friday, everybody. I’m so glad we made it. This is part 5 of our five-part series about the patent law services that Bold Patents offers. I’ve been doing this now for over five years, and it’s my pleasure to talk about litigation, stepping into the ring knowing that you’ve got patent rights granted and being able to impose those on someone that is either infringing or is in need of getting an enforcement mechanism placed on them. I’m gonna talk about that in just a little bit. Before we do that, I want to have a little bit of fun today and sing out loud. It’s a national sing-out-loud day. I want you to have some fun with this, and it’s, of course, Friday. Let’s maybe go out there, do some karaoke, and have some fun this weekend, and sing out loud what it is you’re passionate about. Put in the comments below if you’re either laughing your butt off about me singing just now or if you yourself may be able to just break out of your comfort zone and sing about your invention. I want to hear about what you’re up to. Take this time that’s a little bit of a self-promotion and put out there a little bit of details. Maybe give your website; we’d love to share it with our community here and hear more about what you’re up to.
Okay, well, aside from a singing, this is fun, okay, this is when you’re really all about letting everyone know that you have patents granted and how it’s your job to monitor the market to make sure no one else is infringing your invention. So let’s say you find someone. Okay, one of the fits the fifth topic today is about litigation, how to move forward with your patent rights once you’re ready to enforce them. There are three major bodies to enforce your patent rights: federal court, the PTAB (the Patent Trial and Appeal Board), and the International Trade Commission. Let’s take them in turn.
Federal court, this is the biggest threat you can put on someone. If you’re willing to take them to federal court, you mean business. And you write a letter explaining to them clearly that they’re infringing, walking them through the functionality that indeed impacts and redesign the claims of your patent. And you outline the fact that they now owe you likely damages based on the number of sales that they’ve done. They need to stop production immediately, and if they fail to do that, you’re gonna take them to court.
Number two is the Patent Trial Appeal Board. This is most effective for those on the defense side. Let’s say you’ve just received one of those letters. Interested in trying to invalidate the claims that are being imposed on you. You say, wow, no way I’m selling this product and based on this patent that I’m reading, these claims are way too broad. And I know that someone else has published this invention way before the filing date for this party. And so, you put forward a case to the Patent Trial Appeal Board, which is a special set of attorney judges that are actually able to, they are quite familiar with patent law. It’s a very predictable way to try to invalidate a patent if the laws have changed since the underlying invention had been issued or if you’ve got additional documents you can bring forward to show that that invention is indeed invalid because it’s not new or because it’s non-obvious based on other publications that preceded it.
The third Avenue is the International Trade Commission, and this place is, this is where you would want to go to prevent anyone else from being able to ship into the United States. So, commonplace, let’s just say China. If goods being manufactured, and you can confirm that those are being infringed or infringing your patent rights, you can file a case before the ITC to get them to that customs stop the shipment of those Goods into the US and prevent anyone else from being able to purchase those goods. That’s a huge benefit, of course, to be able to stop the bleeding in that situation. In any cases, those with deep pockets and bigger companies actually do multiple filings. They may even file at all three – per make sure that they have the best chances of getting enforcement rights for their invention.
If you’re in the position and you’ve got patent rights issued and you think someone else is infringing, you’ve got to get a hold of the patent attorney. Let that first step be Bold Pads. I want you to know that we are always willing to take your case with a 30-minute free consultation to get you all the answers to those questions that you have that are burning right to make sure you’re on solid ground and see if it’s a good fit for us to represent you in this very, very important matter. Go to boldpatents.com, check out our website, and you can book yourself a free 30-minute consultation there. We’d be happy to talk with you about that. I hope you all the wonderful weekends, but my pleasure talking with you about our hallmark offerings that we’ve been getting clients for all these years. I’m your host J.D. Houvener of the Bold Today’s Show. Go big, go bold.