What to do if you’re accused of patent infringement; Utah Business, August 2, 2017

Katherine A. Hamer and Nathan E. Whitlock, Utah Business; What to do if you’re accused of patent infringement

"Just as you are looking forward to the weekend, you receive a cease-and-desist letter accusing your company of patent infringement. Or, worse, you receive a summons and complaint. You have been sued. There goes the weekend.

As CEO, CTO or in-house lawyer, you may have only cursory experience with patents. It never occurred to you that what you sell could have been patented by others. And, until now, you had never heard of the company that owns the patent. What do you do?

Remember that anything you put in writing, other than to your lawyers, is potentially discoverable. So be careful of that email you are writing that says “looks like we might infringe.” Don’t write anything you wouldn’t want to see on the front page of The New York Times.

What you will need is the advice of an experienced team of patent attorneys. But first understanding something preliminarily about the patent, your risks and your options, will make it easier to have a productive discussion with your attorneys."