I thought that I did a good job of following patent law, but I was unaware that it is illegal, or more accurately a civil tort, for a company to claim a patent after it has expired.

So, if I were to get patent number 867-5309, someone could sue me for anticompetitive behavior if I were to continue to claim that my product were still protected.

Well, recent court cases have vastly expanded the law, taking this from a $500.00 award to a $500.00 award per offense, which means that it applies to each product shipped:

Marking a tube of toothpaste or paper cup with a patent that is out of date or doesn’t exist has been against the law for years. It is considered anticompetitive. Until late last year, the most a violator had to worry about was paying a $500 penalty for misleading the public.

But in December, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington ruled that defendants could be held responsible for up to $500 per offense.
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Lawyers for product manufacturers now fear clients are liable for up to $500 for every tube of mascara or box of garbage bags marked with an expired patent—an error that turns out to be quite common.

Now, I’m sure that the holders of patents will be lobbying Congress to fix this.

Call your Representative, and tell him, that absent meaningful change, which rolling back the expansion of patents (discovered genes, species, software, business plans, tax deductions, etc.) that have perverted the purpose of Patents in the past few decades.

Stricter rules on what is, and is not, “obvious”, as well as changes to make it harder for patent trolls would help too.