{"id":1475,"date":"2017-03-21T17:10:31","date_gmt":"2017-03-21T21:10:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=1475"},"modified":"2017-03-23T09:53:17","modified_gmt":"2017-03-23T13:53:17","slug":"sitback-make-the-popcorn-and-watch-patent-owners-you-have-six-years-to-bring-your-infringement-claim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=1475","title":{"rendered":"Sitback, Make the Popcorn, and Watch, Patent Owners, You Have Six Years to Bring Your Infringement Claim"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In <em>SCA Hugiene Products Aktiebolag v. First Quality Baby Products, LLC, <\/em>[15\u2013927] (March 21, 2017), the Supreme Court reversed the Federal Circuit and held that\u00a0<em>laches<\/em> cannot be invoked as a defense against a claim for damages brought within 35 U.S.C. \u00a7286\u2019s six-year limitations period.<\/p>\n<p>The Supreme Court followed the reasoning in\u00a0<em>Petrella\u00a0<\/em><em>v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc.<\/em>, where it eliminated the <em>laches<\/em> defense for copyright infringement claims brought within the Copyright Act\u2019s 3-year limitations period. \u00a0The Court said that\u00a0a\u00a0statute of limitations reflects a Congressional decision that timeliness is better judged by a hard and fast rule instead of a case-specific judicial determination. The Court further said that applying <em>laches<\/em> within a limitations period specified by Congress would give judges a \u201clegislation-overriding\u201d role that exceeds the Judiciary\u2019s power.<\/p>\n<p>Although the Copyright Statute\u00a017 U.S.C. \u00a7507(b) is worded as a true statute of limitations, requiring action &#8220;within three years after\u00a0the claim accrued,&#8221; while the Patent Statute 35 U.S.C. \u00a7286 is a damages limitation, barring recovery of damages\u00a0&#8220;more than six years prior to the filing of the complaint,&#8221; the Supreme Court found the statutes similar enough to apply the reasoning of <em>Petrella.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Supreme Court also rejected the Federal Circuit&#8217;s interpretation of 35 U.S.C. \u00a7282 as retaining a <em>laches<\/em> defense to patent infringement.<\/p>\n<p>In closing, the Supreme Court\u00a0indicated that the\u00a0Doctrine of Equitable Estoppel may still be available, and in fact may apply to\u00a0<em>SCA Hugiene Products&#8217; claims, <\/em>but that\u00a0<em>laches<\/em> cannot be interposed as a defense against damages where the infringement occurred within the period prescribed by \u00a7286.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In SCA Hugiene Products Aktiebolag v. First Quality Baby Products, LLC, [15\u2013927] (March 21, 2017), the Supreme Court reversed the Federal Circuit and held that\u00a0laches cannot be invoked as a defense against a claim for damages brought within 35 U.S.C. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=1475\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-damages","category-laches"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1475"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1476,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1475\/revisions\/1476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}