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It has been reported this week that two patents owned by Peer Communications Group have been declared invalid.
Invalidity action against the two applications which covered ‘peer to peer’ networking came after Peer Communications Group allegedly attempted to assert its patent against Skype. Initially the District Court of the Eastern District of Texas found the patents to be invalid and this has been upheld by the Court of Appeals in the US.
This case shows one this very clearly – even when a patent is acquired it is open to attack. It is therefore crucial that substantive research is conducted before filing an application to ensure that it is not likely to be attacked.
