Once the America Invents Act becomes law, it won’t be enough for a plaintiff to claim that defendants should be joined together in the same patent suit because they’re accused of infringing the same patent. They will have to be accused of joint infringement, or there will have to be some common factual basis to the claims against them.
The new rule applies to all patent cases filed on or after the date the bill is enacted. It was intended to curb the number of multidefendant patent infringement suits being filed by NPEs and cut down on the expense and headache of having multiple trials and settlement negotiations.
