I'm surprised HD lost. They must have some really terrible lawyers that'll never work in that town again.
I suggest everyone watch the movie "Flash of Genius" might be boring for some but it's a nice summary how corporate America treats the little guy.
Tactics usually used by huge companies are to stall for as long as possible and hope the patient expires or stall till the guy runs out of money to keep pursuing the suit.
Zenith, GE and Philips you should google to see how they treated their employees in the 1950 when some of the greatest inventions were made, stuff we use everyday.
I've practicing IP/patent litigation over 15 years and I've never run across the firm or the attorney representing HD, and I know, worked with or have been up against most of the big name firms in the field. (I have, however, worked with attorneys who had actual face-to-face dealings with Kearns and some of the stories are quite "interesting.")
One thing unique to patent litigation is that patent actions often hinge on what is called "claim construction" which has been identified as a "matter of law" and therefore for the trial court judge in the first instance to decide, normally after what is called a "Markman hearing." The claim construction construes the meaning of the terms in the claims at issue of the asserted patent(s). On appeal, the claim construction is often central to determination. The Federal Circuit, the Court of Appeals for patent cases has, last I looked, around a 40% reversal rate (this seems to depend a bit on the Federal District out of which the decision below came) on the claim construction. It really ain't over til it's over.
Also, in individual inventor actions where the plaintiff is not a manufacturer/seller of the patented product, a consideration, particularly with respect to settling cases before trial or even dispositive motions, is the fairly recent ruling by the Supreme Court in eBay Inc v. MercExchange, L.L.C. Before eBay, injunctions in patent actions for prevailing patentees were almost routine -- this was a big gun in the hands of plaintiffs. If the defendant went to trial, say on a major product line, they could well be shut down if they lost undrr the pre-eBay standard. That would have been taking a big chance and if, for example, you were in-house counsel who made the call to go to trial and it lead to a major product line being shut down, you could have some serious 'splaining to do. Now, however, if a solo inventor does not manufacture (sell) the patented product, an injunction will likely be harder to obtain under the eBay standard, marking for less of a "gun."
