The state attorney general’s office has argued that a Washington federal judge should put into effect a standard which analyzes the patterns of harassment during the determination of whether the owner of a data processing network patent acted in bad faith. In this particular case, the said owner had issued nearly 2,000 uniform demand letters claiming infringement.
Understanding the criteria for what constitutes ‘bad faith’ in these situations could have far-reaching implications for similar intellectual property (IP) cases. For corporations and law firms dealing with patent law, the core issue here is how such patterns of behavior, specifically high-volume issuance of demand letters, may be legally perceived.
The attorney general’s office is actively encouraging the courts to implement measures that respond to potential harassment strategies disguised as legal actions. These developments signal an increasing awareness of how IP law can be exploited and used for purposes other than the protection of legitimate rights.
For additional particulars of the legal arguments and the wider conversation around ‘bad faith’ in IP cases, you can further explore the matter in an article published on Law360 here.