The case before the court involved bow ties sold by Brooks Brothers. Raymond Stauffer, an IP lawyer at Carella, Byrne, Cecchi, Olstein, Brody & Agnello, filed a false marking qui tam suit in December 2008, alleging that Brooks Brothers marked its ties with false patent information. In June 2009, Manhattan federal district court judge Sidney Stein granted Brooks Brothers’s motion to dismiss. Judge Stein found that Stauffer lacked standing because he couldn’t show that either he or the government was harmed by the allegedly false marks.
The Federal Circuit panel disagreed. In a decision written by Judge Alan Lourie, the panel ruled that qui tam plaintiffs, who are assigned rights from the government, only have to show that the public is harmed by a defendant’s conduct. And because Congress enacted a statute prohibiting deceptive patent labeling, qui tam plaintiffs can claim that the public is harmed when the law is broken. (Chief Judge Randall Rader and Judge Kimberly Moore joined the opinion.)
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