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Contact: Chris McManes IEEE-USA Files
Brief before U.S. Supreme Court WASHINGTON (5 September 2001) - The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers - United States of America (IEEE-USA) filed an amicus curiae brief last Friday, 31 August, before the U.S. Supreme Court in the Festo Corporation v. Shoketsu Kinzoku Kogyo Kabushiki Co., LTD patent case. A copy of the brief and other relevant resources are available at http://www.ieeeusa.org/forum/policy/01aug31festo.html. In Festo, the Court will be considering to what extent the holder of an amended patent is barred from asserting patent rights against another inventor whose design is substantially the same as the patented invention. As an alternative to the "flexible bar" and "absolute bar" standards advocated by the opposing sides in Festo, IEEE-USA is asking the Court to consider a "foreseeable bar," where holders of an amended patent give up protection for only those things that were foreseeable by persons familiar with the associated technology. "This is a landmark case that will redefine intellectual property rights," IEEE-USA President Ned Sauthoff said. "IEEE-USA believes it's critical the Court understands how these legal doctrines affect engineers and the process of innovation in the real world." According to Lee Hollaar, chair of IEEE-USA's Intellectual Property Committee, "the foreseeability standard strikes a reasonable balance by providing notice to those developing improvements to a patented invention, while not constraining a patent to current technologies when a new technology performs the same function." He added that IEEE-USA's proposal would "encourage innovation by protecting the interests of inventors, while setting clear and comprehensible guidelines for the next generation of technological improvement." Carlton Fields, P.A. of Tampa (www.carltonfields.com) prepared the brief pro bono. Andrew Greenberg served as counsel of record and headed a team of 10 lawyers and legal assistants. IEEE-USA is an organizational unit of the IEEE created in 1973 to promote the careers and public-policy interests of the more than 230,000 electrical, electronics, computer and software engineers who are U.S. members of the IEEE. The IEEE is the world's largest technical professional society. For more information, visit us online at http://www.ieeeusa.org. The Institute
of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.--United States of America | Top of Page | News Releases | IEEE News | IEEE | IEEE-USA | Last Updated: 5
Sept. 2001 |
