Court sides with Cognex

Staff -- Test & Measurement World, 11/1/2005

Cognex reports that on September 9, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed an earlier lower court decision that the claims of 14 machine-vision patents asserted by the Lemelson Partnership are unenforceable for reasons of prosecution laches (or delays in asserting a legal right or claim). In this case, Cognex says that Lemelson delayed prosecution by up to 39 years after the filing of the original patent.

"This ruling confirms Cognex's belief that Lemelson abused the patent system when he obtained his so-called 'machine-vision' patents. And the ruling also helps to give credit for the development of machine vision to those who truly deserve it...the many highly skilled engineers at Cognex and elsewhere who have spent years inventing, developing, and manufacturing the machine-vision products that serve industry so well today," said Dr. Robert J. Shillman, chairman and CEO of Cognex, in a prepared statement. www.cognex.com.