Federal Circuit Gets First Crack at State ‘Patent Troll’ Laws

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit will hear arguments on Idaho’s bad-faith patent assertion statute, which requires patent owners to post bonds in certain cases. The challenge comes from Longhorn IP and Katana Silicon Technologies, who argue the law is unconstitutional.

Finnegan partner Lionel Lavenue told Bloomberg Law that claims under bad-faith assertion laws are used sparingly in part because they’re still “a new approach within patent law.”

He added that he doesn’t expect the Federal Circuit to make a sweeping ruling either rendering the laws preempted or constitutionally sound.

“If I were the judge,” he said, “I might be willing to look at the specific issues with the bond requirement and see if there’s some fine tuning they can do.”

Read “Federal Circuit Gets First Crack at State ‘Patent Troll’ Laws”