Patent Owner Points to 1789 in Quest for Preliminary Injunction

A patent owner is urging a Texas federal judge to look to the law in 18th Century England as it tries to convince the court to block US sales of certain Samsung Electronics Co. flash drives for the duration of a patent suit.

Since the US Supreme Court’s 2006 decision in eBay v. MercExchange, courts have said patent owners that don’t make or sell products based on their inventions—known as nonpracticing entities, or NPEs—generally must be content with damages awards rather than injunctions. NPEs have largely been found not to suffer irreparable harm when a defendant continues to use ...