On Laches-U.S. Defense Of Patent Infringement

U.S. patent law and case law has developed into a strict, rigorous and effective legal system in the fields of law-making, law-applying, restrictions and remedies on the rights. During the legal litigation, the defenses of laches, estoppel, unclean hands have acquired recognition in equity. This paper aims to illustrate the following cases, namely Lane & Bodley Company v. Locke, A. C. Aukerman Company v. R. L. Chailes Construction Co. and Symbol Technologies, Inc. v. Lemelson Medical, Education & Research Foundation, Limited Partnership which are of huge importance in the development of the defense of laches to present the application of laches, its legal consequences and the burden of proof.This paper also attaches its attention on Chinese law regulations in respect of limitation of patent infringement and demonstrates with analysis of specific applications of limitation in the cases of court proceedings in patent infringements and its problem exposed, which is that the patentee does not claim his right the moment he finds infringement but wait until the infringer expands his investment in business, so that the infringer should bear a greater amount of tort damages.At last, the paper comes up with suggestions on Chinese reference of the principle of laches as a defense of patent infringement.