Opinion ID: 505943
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: introduction

Text: 21 This appeal presents a type of the sad and saddening scenario that led to enactment of the Declaratory Judgment Act (Act), 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2201. In the patent version of that scenario, a patent owner engages in a danse macabre, brandishing a Damoclean threat with a sheathed sword. See Japan Gas Lighter Ass'n v. Ronson Corp., 257 F.Supp. 219, 237, 150 USPQ 589, 601 (D.N.J.1966). Guerrilla-like, the patent owner attempts extra-judicial patent enforcement with scare-the-customer-and-run tactics that infect the competitive environment of the business community with uncertainty and insecurity. See E. Borchard,Declaratory Judgments 803-04 (2d ed. 1941). Before the Act, competitors victimized by that tactic were rendered helpless and immobile so long as the patent owner refused to grasp the nettle and sue. After the Act, those competitors were no longer restricted to an in terrorem choice between the incurrence of a growing potential liability for patent infringement and abandonment of their enterprises; they could clear the air by suing for a judgment that would settle the conflict of interests. The sole requirement for jurisdiction under the Act is that the conflict be real and immediate, i.e., that there be a true, actual controversy required by the Act. Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Haworth, 300 U.S. 227, 239-41, 57 S.Ct. 461, 463-64, 81 L.Ed. 617 (1937); Jervis B. Webb Co., 742 F.2d at 1398, 222 USPQ at 949. 4