Law Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for legal professionals, students, and others with experience or interest in law. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I currently sell bed bug traps on Amazon. I've been selling them since March 2017.
Recently I received a complaint from the rights owner of this patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20110225873?oq=patent:20110225873A1
It looks like they were published today: 2019-08-12 Application status is Active
My question is: I have been selling since before this patent was active. Also, I had no idea there was a patent application to begin with. Do I have to stop selling my bed bug traps?
Maybe
You linked to the publication of a patent application, not to a patent. Based solely on looking at the format of the number the answer would be, Yes, unless it eventually became an issued patent.
As it happens, it did become issued patent US9066511B2. That would make the answer no. Since the application was filed before you started selling them, the fact that you were selling them in 2017 could not be used to challenge the patent. I say the answer is maybe because the patent has been disputed in court and I do not know if the outcome has left the patent valid. You can look this up at the USPTO Public PAIR. Then you need to search with either the patent number or the publication number. When you get to the record of the history of that application look at the Image File Wrapper tab.
Assuming the patent is valid and assuming you are actually violating it.
“Bed bug traps” is not something that is patentable. This particular novel and new way of making a bed bug trap is patentable. So you can sell “bed bug traps” so long as they don’t work the way theirs do.
