#prosecution-laches

#prosecution-laches

The Federal Circuit's new opinion in Hyatt v. Stewart affirms a bench-trial judgment that the USPTO may invoke prosecution laches to defeat four of Gilbert Hyatt's pre-GATT civil actions under 35 U.S.C. § 145. The panel treated the availability of prosecution laches in §145 as settled by Hyatt v. Hirshfeld ("Hyatt I"), 998 F.3d 1347 (Fed. Cir. 2021), and rejected Hyatt's renewed argument that the Supreme Court's recent decisions on laches (Petrella and SCA Hygiene) foreclose an equitable time-bar in patent-issuance litigation.

Prosecution laches requires both (1) an unreasonable and unexplained delay in patent prosecution and (2) a showing of prejudice to the accused infringer in the form of intervening rights (e.g. evidence that others "invested in, worked on, or used the claimed technology during the period of delay"). Here, Google failed to present evidence that it (or others) changed their position or made investments in reliance on Sonos's delay and so laches could not apply.

In 2020, Sonos sued Google asserting two wireless speaker patents allowing overlapping groups of speakers. A jury found Google liable and awarded $30 million.