Arbitration Procedure Compared with Court Litigation in Patent Controversies

Abstract

To appraise properly the possibilities of the usefulness of arbitration for settling litigable matters affecting patents, some understanding of the general nature of ordinary controversies involving patents should be had. Disputes involving patents may generally be placed under three or four classes. The first and most important type of patent litigation is the infringement suit. That is to say, a person or concern owns a patent, and another, without license, is making, selling, or using the invention of the patent, as claimed therein, creating a situation of infringement. To enjoin such infringement and recover damages therefor, a suit in a federal court is necessary, if court procedure is to be availed of, for under the federal statutes patent enforcement is exclusively within the jurisdiction of the United States courts.1