|
|
Lemelson Patents Deemed Invalid |
|
|
[12/15/05]
AIM Global, the trade association recognized as the worldwide authority on automatic identification and mobility, reports that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has declared all of the claimed Lemelson bar code and machine vision patents unenforceable due to an unnecessary delay in filing. The decision was published on 16 November 2005. In January 2002 the Federal Circuit found that unreasonable delay (in prosecuting patent rights) was a valid argument against patent infringement and sent the case back to the district court.
Jerome H. Lemelson was arguably one of the world's most prolific inventors with over 500 patents to his credit. Most of these patents are not affected by the ruling.
The ruling may finally signify the end of a six-year legal battle between the Lemelson Foundation (current owners of the patents) and nine AIDC companies. The 16 November 2005 decision expanded on a 9 September 2005 panel decision. The 9 September 2005 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed an earlier lower court decision that the claims of 14 machine vision patents asserted by the Lemelson Partnership (some of which were also claimed to apply to bar code reading) are unenforceable for reasons of prosecution laches.
The 16 November 2005 opinion can be found at: http://www.fedcir.gov/opinions/04-1451o.pdf.
The AIDC companies involved in the litigation were: Symbol Technologies, Inc., Accu-Sort Systems, Inc., Metrologic Instruments, Inc., PSC Inc., Teklogix Corporation, Zebra Technologies Corp., Cognex Corporation, Telxon Corporation, and Intermec Technologies Corp.
It has been suggested that the Lemelson Foundation may appeal the ruling or ask that the Supreme Court take the ruling under review.
About AIM Global
For more than 30 years, AIM Global has served as the association for and worldwide authority on automatic identification, data collection and networking in a mobile environment. AIM members are providers and users of technologies, systems, and services that capture, manage, and integrate accurate data into larger information systems. Serving more than 900 members in 43 countries, AIM is dedicated to accelerating the growth and use of Automatic Identification and Mobility technologies and services around the world.
AIM actively supports the development of AIDC standards through its own Technical Symbology Committee, North American and Global Standards Advisory Groups, and RFID Action Group as well as through participation at the industry, national (ANSI) and international (ISO) levels. It is the leading authority on bar code, RFID, and magnetic stripe technologies. AIM members are also leading solutions providers of voice systems, magnetic stripe, mobile computing, OCR, and contact memory.
AIM Global has an active educational focus, providing accurate and unbiased information on AIM technology, standards, and applications. For more information on associated AIM programs, please visit www.aimglobal.org/calendar.
As part of its educational outreach, AIM Global publishes "RFID Connections," the industry's oldest and most respected e-newsletter on RFID. For a free subscription, please visit http://subscriptions.aimglobal.org.
For more information on AIM Global, its projects and members, please visit www.aimglobal.org or www.rfid.org.
|
|
|
|
 |
RFID Component Encoder
A library for Visual Studio and other .NET development environments that enables printing of barcodes and encoding of RFID smart labels and tags at the same time.
|
 |
RFID/Barcode Printers
Offers high speed, dedicated thermal bar code label and card printers. Serial and parallel ports are provided on some of the printers listed, and some have USB and Ethernet interfaces.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| If you have RFID news and would like to submit to us, please contact us |
 |
|
|
