Unocal may have won in the court once, but do you think they could do the same trick another time?
I mentioned the case because Unocal prevailed in both trial and appellate courts, and the Supreme Court denied Exxon's request for a hearing. Also, the California regulators were happy with the standard, irrespective of who owned the critical patent, because the standard made it possible to produce gasoline economically, without the usual pollution and contamination effects of gasoline with other additives. The Unocal patent case, having been affirmed at the appellate level, is now the law of the land.
There is a precedent here, which I believe applies to QUALCOMM, in that the Supreme Court, in denying certiorari, in effect upheld the lower courts, which said there was nothing wrong with a company urging regulators to adopt its patented product into a standard. That was the very issue of the case; namely, whether a patent in a standard adopted by regulators, without the knowledge that a particular company patent was involved, still was valid and enforceable. The courts said yes.
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