Lemelson patents deemed invalid

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.