114 3 BSLR [2006/2007] : CASE COMMENT : KEMPTON AND HARBORNE – PATENT ENTITLEMENTrewards that can be few and far between. The very rationalePATENT behind patent law is to incentivise investment in research anddevelopment by protecting inventions once they arise.ENTITLEMENT Patents can be highly valuable profit-generating assets in theright hands, yielding licensing revenue and boosting acompany’s profile and reputation for innovation. It is a hardYEDA RESEARCH blow to a business to discover that another organisationclaims rights to a valuable patent.AND DEVELOP-Loss of patent entitlement can have significant financialimpact on a company. In 2006, the US Blackberry litigationMENT COMPANYresulted in payment by Research in Motion of over $600million for a perpetual licence of the patents in suit, whichLIMITED vwas apparently preferable to facing trial.RHÔNE-POULENC Perhaps even more than other litigation, patent entitlementcases are typically intensified by bad feeling between theRORER parties. Whether an ex-employee has continued developmentof an invention at a new company or co-inventors have goneINTERNATIONAL their different ways, the disintegration of the co-operativerelationship which originally cultivated the invention isHOLDINGS INC emotive. Additionally, the very nature of a ‘proprietorship’argument is personal and participants can feel no lessAND OTHERS cheated than if they had been mugged.Businesses can of course take steps to reduce the ...
Voir