Appeals court upholds machine vision decision

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has affirmed an earlier lower court decision that the claims of 14 machine vision patents asserted by the Lemelson Partnership are unenforceable.

Cognex has revealed that on 9th September 2005, the US 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 are unenforceable for reasons of prosecution laches.

The complete text of the appeals court ruling can be found on the Cognex website.

Cognex initiated the lawsuit against the Lemelson Partnership on 23rd September 1998.

The original ruling in favour of Cognex and eight other plaintiffs was issued by Judge Philip Pro of the US District Court in Nevada on 23rd January 2004.

In that decision, Judge Pro ruled that the Lemelson patent claims were unenforceable under the doctrine of prosecution laches, and in addition, that the claims were invalid for lack of enablement, and not infringed by Cognex.

The Lemelson Partnership appealed the ruling on 23rd June 2004.

By upholding the lower court's decision that the patents are unenforceable for reasons of prosecution laches, the US Court of Appeals said that it need not consider any of Lemelson's other appeal claims.

The doctrine of prosecution laches states that certain legal claims may be found unenforceable due to an unreasonable or unexplained delay in prosecuting those claims.

The court ruling indicated that the doctrine should be used sparingly and only in egregious cases of misuse of the patent system.

In the case of the contested Lemelson machine vision patents, prosecution was delayed by as much as 39 years after the filing of the original patent.

"This ruling confirms Cognex's belief that Lemelson abused the patent system when he obtained his so-called 'machine vision' patents".

"And, the ruling also helps to give credit for the development of machine vision to those who truly deserve it - the many highly skilled engineers at Cognex and elsewhere who have spent years inventing, developing and manufacturing the machine vision products that serve industry so well today", said Dr Robert J Shillman, Chairman and CEO of Cognex.

Dr Shillman continued: "The Lemelson Partnership can appeal this most recent ruling to the US Supreme Court - and we hope they do, because it would give us a reason for another victory celebration".

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