Patent Law

Eric Lane of the Green Patent Blog writes on January 4, 2009:

This is something I haven?t seen before:  a shareholder derivative action for patent infringement.

BaoLiang Wang (Plaintiff Wang) is a 22% shareholder of a small California LED sign maker called Sun LED Sign Supply Inc. (Sun).

Last month, Plaintiff Wang sued Sun, two of its directors, Xiao Ping Wang (Defendant Wang) and Wei Rong Fang, as well as JT LED USA (JT), Sunfire LED, LLC (Sunfire) and The LED, Inc. in federal court in Los Angeles, alleging patent infringement against all defendants and unfair competition against the two directors of Sun.

According to the complaint, while the application that issued as the ?279 patent was pending, Defendant Wang assigned the application to Sun, ?giving the exclusive right to [Sun] for a period of eight (8) years.?  The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office patent assignments database lists Sun as the assignee of the ?279 patent.

Plaintiff Wang is asking the court to find defendants liable for patent infringement, to compensate him for his losses and to assess punitive damages on defendants for their alleged fraudulent acts.

So it?s a competing director type shareholder suit with an IP twist.  And because the inventor assigned away his rights, we have a situation in which the inventor is accused of infringing his own patent.

Read the full post here.