Your Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman

separator

Your Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman


Justice Kagan’s writing style often reads like a breath of fresh air in the musty—if august—annals of Supreme Court opinions. Her opinion in Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment, LLC, is no exception, and would be noteworthy for no other reason than that it cites Spiderman comics as an authority.

That Justice Kagan managed to combine pop culture with patents is admirable enough, but Kimble holds more interest for the IP practitioner. Kimble and Marvel had squared off over a royalty arrangement, with Marvel claiming that it was not obligated to pay Kimble based on product sales after the patent’s expiration. Squarely blocking Kimble’s claim to the contrary is a case as old as Spidey himself, Brulotte v. Thys Co., which decrees that a patentee’s use of a royalty agreement that projects beyond the expiration date of the patent is unlawful per se. While the Court seemed unified in its derision of the simplistic economics behind Brulotte’s rule, the 6–3 majority commanded by Kagan was unwilling to challenge the awesome power of stare decisis to overrule it:

“What we can decide, we can undecide. But stare decisis teaches that we should exercise that authority sparingly. Cf. S. Lee and S. Ditko, Amazing Fantasy No. 15: “Spider–Man,” p. 13 (1962) (‘[I]n this world, with great power there must also come—great responsibility’). Finding many reasons for staying the stare decisis course and no ‘special justification’ for departing from it, we decline Kimble’s invitation to overrule Brulotte.”

Print Friendly, PDF & Email
separator

No comments so far!

separator

Leave a Comment