pickels

I don't know what happened in Germany but the iFly v. ISG case in the US was about a US patent. A US patent can only exclude competition in the US. There are problems with the US patent system and that is why there is the new procedure to help invalidate patents. That process has been very successful in removing weak patents from the US. The problem was that ISG's lawyers failed to meet the requirements for that procedure. The fact that iFly was able to get ISG to agree to leave other markets when all that was at issue was a US patent tells you they had no faith in their case or their lawyers. I don't fly in Germany, only in the US. It is too bad for people like me who want more competition in the US. I hope other companies stand up to iFly and fight for competition in the market.

We have all heard of people going to jail because they had bad lawyers. Why do you assume lawyers are competent? A law degree is easy to get. IMO: the patent office case was bad. There was lots of old tunnels etc in the materials that ISG provided. The legal rules for presenting the information were not followed. ISG's lawyers tried to fix the mess by saying it didn't understand the rules. The motion and the courts response shows it was bad. see http://www.natlawreview.com/article/indoor-skydiving-germany-gmbh-v-ifly-holdings-denying-request-rehearing-regarding The lawsuit filings show lots of other mistakes. It looks like ISG hired a new lawyer before trial and that lawyer probably told them they had to settle. I hate to see all the discussion about iFly being the true inventor and discussion about ISG's problems in the market when there is more going on here. The facts are that no one would settle on the terms in iFly's notice after litigating the case so long if there wasn't some thing more going on. We will never know but can't assume that iFly's monopoly can't be challenged with a better effort.

Not an attorney either, but read the docket available to the public. IMO: the patent office action was totally screwed up by the lawyers. Not ISG's fault, but the patent office mess ups, and lots of bad lawyering in the case left ISG with no choice but to settle on very bad terms. Too bad for skydiving. Some other company should challenge the patents using good lawyers.