Patent Law

False Marking

By Gary Odom and Jordan Kuhn

Coffee drinker Matthew Pequignot sued Solo Cup for false marking, after noticing on coffee cup lids patent marks for long-expired patents. He then went after Gillette and Proctor & Gamble. Pequignot sued qui tam, on behalf of the government. In March, D.C. district court judge Leonie Brinkema ruled that copasetic. Damages of up to $500 per violation are possible. For mass-produced items, the tab could run to $ billions.

Under the law, the government gets half the take, the righteous citizen the remainder.

A New York judge pitched a similar case brought by Raymond E. Stauffer against Brooks Brothers over still marking its "original Adjustolox" bow tie, because of failure to show harm. By contrast, Brinkema ruled that the U.S. inherently suffered harm by breaking the law. The Justice Department backs her up, and moved to intervene in Stauffer's case.

Brinkema is not gung-ho on this, grudgingly acknowledging Pequignot's right to proceed: "It is likely an accident of history that (the law) survives as one of the few remaining qui tam statutes in American law."

The expected denigration of these legal activists has transpired. Stauffer was labeled a "bounty hunter" by Neil Friedman, who appears to have fallen off the turnip truck and picked himself up just in time to bill hours to Brooks Brothers for their defense. That practically defines every plaintiff lawyer, Mr. Friedman.

On the other side, corporations like Gillette squirm to evade the law by whining: "False markings claims come cheap. They damage defendants' reputations."

False marking acts as territorial pissing, marking turf that is no longer proprietary.

Full post as published by The Patent Prospector on June 08, 2009 (boomark / email).