Defending a patent infringement suit can be financially devastating to any company. Each year, thousands are filed, oftentimes costing defendants millions of dollars in liability and attorneys’ fees. In many instances, had these defendants conducted a simple patent investigation prior to commercializing their technology, liability could have been avoided.
Unfortunately, failure to obtain patent counsel is common. “That technology can’t be patented,” “our competitors don’t have patents,” “we patent every product so we don’t need to worry,” “we have never been sued before,” or “it’s too expensive” are a few common excuses.
This mind-set can lead to unbudgeted engineering costs associated with developing non-infringing redesigns, leave a company with millions of dollars of useless inventory and destroy longtime relationships with customers sued for innocently purchasing infringing products.