[Patents] British law proposal for unlimited patent infringement penalties

[phm@a2e.de (PILCH Hartmut)]

The British parliament is being pushed to press for US-like punitive
damages in patent suits, making fines like the 1 billion dollar payment
from Kodak to Polaroid possible in Britain also.  As always in such
motions, the interest of SMEs and "small inventors", in this case a voice
recognition software company is used for PR purposes.

I would bet that the AllVoice patent is on some trivial functional idea
that IBM or anyone in the field would come across anyway.

What is interesting is that in this British case apparently a software
patent went through litigation.  It seems unlikely that the infringer IBM
would battle on the grounds that software patents are illegal under the
European Patent Convention and that what IBM marketed was nothing but a
computer program as such.   This way a wall of illegal caselaw is built
even in the patent infringement area, and we didn't notice it.

This initiative to bring heavier patent infringement penalties will, like
most of its kind, eventually work to the favor of large companies and
one type of SME, the "patent terrorism" specialist company, only.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 00:31:46 +0200
From: Axel H Horns <horns@ipjur.com>
Reply-To: intprop-l@topica.com
To: intprop-l@topica.com
Subject: [FYI] British Parliament Considers Tougher Patent Infringement
    Rules

<http://www.yellowbrix.com/pages/patentnews/Story.nsp?story_id=22280674&category=Business+and+Finance%3AIntellect.+Prop.&ID=patentnews>

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British Parliament Considers Tougher Patent Infringement Rules

Source: Sunday Business

Publication date: 2001-07-15

Arrival time: 2001-07-17

Jul. 15--Judges will be able to award unlimited damages to companies
which have had ideas stolen or patents breached if a Private Member's
bill, due to be announced tomorrow, becomes law.

Under the present rules, small companies are often left empty-handed
or pushed to the wall by multinationals adopting ideas and passing
them off as their own.

It is understood that the plight of a pioneering British software
company, AllVoice, has been central to the drafting of the bill.
AllVoice has been in a legal battle with IBM after the US giant
allegedly took the British company's voice-recognition technology and
used it in its own products.

Entrepreneur James Dyson would have found it easier to protect his
ideas if the proposed new rules were in place during his protracted
legal battle over patents on his products. Dyson, the inventor of a
revolutionary vacuum cleaner, eventually won his long struggle.

A number of business organisations and entrepreneurs are known to be
ready to throw their support behind the bill. Labour party
representatives will get together this week to see if the government
wants to help ease the bill's passage. If the change goes through,
companies that "steal" patented ideas and use them in products
developed abroad could come under greater pressure from the British
courts.

Instead of the current system, which makes it very difficult,
particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises, to pursue
overseas companies through the courts, a UK judge could more easily
make a guilty company pay damages.

At the moment, even if damages are awarded they are restricted. The
proposed change in the law would see the possibility of unlimited
damages.

The finishing touches are now being put to the bill which will be
officially unveiled this week.

[...]

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