IP Litigation & Enforcement: Nokia says patent litigation is getting tougher
Patent litigation is not as simple as “walking into a court and asserting a patent” and is becoming more difficult, the head of litigation at technology company Nokia has claimed.
Speaking at the IP Litigation & Enforcement conference taking place in London today, July 2, Richard Vary told delegates that the patent system works well for single inventions but in reality litigators will find that “most actions” fail.
As well as the cost attached to litigation there is also the issue of “products moving faster than courts”, Vary said, adding that more and more companies, particularly in the smart phone industry, are asserting multiple patents.
“It’s not just one or two, or five or ten patents--we are talking about hundreds of patents being asserted by companies,” he said, adding that the cost of litigation is becoming “eye-watering”.
Vary said that where a national court takes time to reach a judgment companies should file more and more patents in the meantime to improve their arsenal in case of the need for infringement actions.
“You know it’s going to take years to litigate but you can file more in that time in case the patent being asserted goes down in flames. You can then say to your CEO ‘we lost one today but we have filed three more’,” he said.
Vary added that while some courts can be slow to reach a judgment, those that try to resolve cases quickly will be popular and may get overcrowded.
In a lighter moment, Vary spoke of what he described as a prime example of “moving technology on”--the invention of a flying machine by the Wright brothers in 1903 and the subsequent grant of a patent that year.
But Vary said that had the brothers’ invention occurred today they should not have actually been awarded a patent.
“What they discovered and brought together was already known,” Vary said, using it as an example of the difficulties of obtaining a patent for multiple inventions brought together.
He then showed delegates a series of pictures, including an earlier example of the curved shape of wings and a Chinese “propellor like” toy.
The IP Litigation & Enforcement conference runs from July 2 to 3.
