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IEEE-USA Patent Rights Brief Discussed 
Prominently in U.S. Supreme Court

WASHINGTON (10 January 2002) — An IEEE-USA amicus curiae brief on patent rights received prominent attention in oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday in the Festo Corporation v. Shoketsu Kinzoku Kogyo Kabushiki Co., LTD patent case.

A copy of the brief and other relevant resources are available at http://www.ieeeusa.org/forum/POLICY/2001/01aug31festo.html.

IEEE-USA's brief and the U.S. Solicitor General's were the only two of the more than 20 friend-of-the-court briefs discussed openly in court. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor asked both sides to compare and contrast their position with that of IEEE-USA's, while other justices quizzed the parties on IEEE-USA's proposed "foreseeable bar" standard.

"IEEE-USA was happy to provide guidance to the court," said Lee Hollaar, chair of the IEEE-USA Intellectual Property Committee. "We'd like to be there on future issues, where we hope we can contribute to the debate."

In Festo, the Court is considering to what extent the holder of an amended patent is barred from asserting patent rights against another inventor whose design is substantially the same as the patented invention. As an alternative to the "flexible bar" and "absolute bar" standards advocated by the opposing sides in Festo, IEEE-USA is asking the Court to
consider a "foreseeable bar," where holders of an amended patent give up protection for only those things that were foreseeable by persons familiar with the associated technology.

Carlton Fields, P.A. of Tampa (www.carltonfields.com) prepared the brief pro bono. IEEE member Andrew Greenberg served as counsel of record and headed a team of 10 lawyers and legal assistants.

Text of the one-hour oral arguments is available on-line at the Supreme Court website or on the IEEE-USA website.  A decision is expected before summer.

IEEE-USA is an organizational unit of The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers created in 1973 to promote the careers and public-policy interests of the more than 230,000 electrical, electronics, computer and software engineers who are U.S. members of the IEEE. The IEEE is the world's largest technical professional society. For more information, visit us online at http://www.ieeeusa.org.