Invalidate Lemelson's patents
Jon Titus, Editorial Director -- Test & Measurement World, 7/1/2001 2:00:00 AM
Cognex, the machine-vision company, has a beef with Jerome Lemelson, an inventor, and Cognex has taken its fight to court. You may wonder why a big corporation would pick on a small-time inventor. Well, Lemelson has 558 patents to his name and has raked in nearly $1.5 billion in licensing fees and royalties. Actually, the Lemelson Medical, Educational and Research Foundation now holds the patents and collects the money. Lemelson died in 1997. In this battle, Cognex plays David to the foundation's Goliath. The fight involves key patents on machine-vision technology that Cognex seeks to overturn. It has a good case.
The Lemelson Foundation finds itself in court fighting some 400 companies over patent rights and patent validity. And litigants in these cases include not only Cognex, but Intel, Symbol Technologies, Texas Instruments, and many others. In the Cognex case, the suit centers on machine-vision patents that cover technologies used in almost all vision systems. Cognex asserts that the patents are invalid because Lemelson's claims are too broad and that Lemelson abused the patent process. Indeed he did.
According to an article in the May 14 issue of Fortune, Lemelson often didn't invent anything new; he simply looked for technical trends and submitted overstuffed claims that baffled patent examiners. When examiners rejected claims, he resubmitted a modified application, dragging out a process called "continuation." In some cases, patents applied for in the '50s were finally issued in the '80s and '90s, only then starting their 17-year life. During continuations, Lemelson added new claims for existing technologies that he saw in use-a perversion of the patent process. According to one of his past attorneys, Lemelson didn't patent inventions, he invented patents.
As a result of lengthy continuations, Lemelson's original "machine-vision" patents describe processes that bear no relationship to today's technologies, yet incredibly, patents first filed decades ago-and recently granted-cover modern systems. Cognex decided its best bet was to challenge the validity of these patents and the abused continuations in court.
Inventors who apply new technologies now have a fairer patent system. With few exceptions, patents now run 20 years from filing and get published 18 months after filing. Inventors can't nurse "submarine" patents that suddenly surface and torpedo people who didn't know they had been filed. Unfortunately, many such applications still exist. Until the courts can rule on their validity, companies like Cognex will have to keep a sharp lookout for foundation lawyers ready to demand tribute to the Lemelson patents. I wish Cognex well. T&MW
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