{"id":341641,"date":"2017-05-23T07:48:57","date_gmt":"2017-05-22T23:48:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1494153"},"modified":"2017-05-23T07:48:57","modified_gmt":"2017-05-22T23:48:57","slug":"patent-trolls-take-it-on-the-chin-in-new-supreme-court-ruling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/patent-trolls-take-it-on-the-chin-in-new-supreme-court-ruling\/","title":{"rendered":"Patent trolls take it on the chin in new Supreme Court ruling"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Sad! Patent trolls, who\u2019ve benefited from a 30-year-old legal standard that made it\u00a0possible for patent holders to sue companies in almost any U.S. jurisdiction\u00a0\u2014 including a federal district\u00a0in east Texas that\u2019s notorious for serving as a favorable venue for patent holders \u2014 just lost their ability to bring infringement lawsuits in such plaintiff-friendly places.<\/p>\n

In a unanimous ruling, the court ruled instead that companies can be sued for patent infringement only where they reside or where they have a regular and established place of business.<\/p>\n

The ruling is a blow to companies that hold patents almost solely so they can sue companies into financial awards.<\/p>\n

Law school academics now expect many cases to move to Delaware, where many companies are incorporated, as well as to tech hubs like California and Massachusetts.<\/p>\n

There, not only will the companies being sued be better equipped to fight off trolls, owing to their home court advantage, but according to the WSJ<\/a>,\u00a0the cases may well take\u00a0longer to process, too. This could prove especially true of Delaware, whose judges will undoubtedly be facing much heavier patent caseloads and don\u2019t have the same machinery in place to churn through them as in Texas, which has reportedly been home to an astonishing 30 percent of patent cases in recent years.<\/p>\n

Apple, Samsung, Microsoft and Google are frequently embroiled in such patent disputes, but today\u2019s ruling had nothing to do with tech companies. Instead, the high court was ruling today on a legal battle between the beverage flavoring company TC Heartland LLC \u00a0and the food and beverage company Kraft Heinz Co.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\" Sad! Patent trolls, who’ve benefited from a 30-year-old legal standard that made it\u00a0possible for patent holders to sue companies in almost any U.S. jurisdiction\u00a0— including a federal district\u00a0in east Texas that’s notorious for serving as a favorable venue for patent holders — just lost their ability to bring infringement lawsuits in such plaintiff-friendly places. In… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"\/ <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5817,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[59,66,26],"class_list":["post-341641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-media","tag-techcrunch","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341641\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}