The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in favour of Symbol Technologies Inc. on Sept. 9 in a bar code patent dispute against the Lemelson Foundation, possibly bringing an eight-year legal saga to a close. The ruling means that companies that use bar code scanning equipment -- previously targets of Lemelson's litigation -- should be free from infringement claims.
The Chief Judge Philip Pro affirmed the District Court's earlier finding that the amount of time it took for the late inventor Jerome Lemelson's patents to issue was unreasonable and unexplained. The earlier decision declared Lemelson's patents unenforceable.
"We are pleased that the Appellate Court ruled that the Lemelson patents are completely unenforceable," said Peter Lieb, Symbol's senior vice president, general counsel and secretary. "This decision is a victory for our shareholders and customers who can have confidence that our products remain unencumbered by Lemelson's unfair assertions of patent infringement."
Lemelson's attorneys could either seek a reconsideration or file a petition for certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court.
"This ruling confirms Cognex's belief that Lemelson abused the patent system when he obtained his so-called 'machine vision' patents," said Robert Shillman, chairman and CEO of Cognex Corp., which had also filed suit against the Foundation. "The Lemelson Partnership can appeal this most recent ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court … and we hope they do, because it would give us a reason for another victory celebration."
The dispute over Lemelson's bar code and machine vision patents goes back decades. The prolific inventor's Foundation filed infringement suits against major bar code and machine vision end users, starting with the Big Three automakers in the 1980s. According to the Web site Law.com, the Foundation raked in upwards of $1.5 billion over the past several years through settlements.
In 1999, Symbol and several other companies (including Intermec Technologies, Metrologic Instruments and PSC) jointly filed suit in federal court in Nevada against the Lemelson Partnership seeking a declaration that the patents were invalid, unenforceable and not infringed. In 2000, the case was consolidated with a similar case filed by machine vision systems manufacturer Cognex Corp. In January 2004, the District Court ruled in Symbol's favour.
For a history of the Lemelson case, click here.
Click here for a copy of the decision.
