1、CRS INSIGHT Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress Legal SidebarLegal Sidebari i Down to a Science (and Technology): Tribes Patent Assignment Deals Extend to High-Tech Patents Updated October 19, 2017 In the wake of the announcement of a deal between Allergan, Inc. and the Saint Regis Mohaw
2、k Tribe (Tribe) involving the assignment of certain pharmaceutical patents to the Tribe, subsequent court filings have confirmed earlier reports that the Tribe also owns technology patents. Specifically, on October 18, 2017, the Tribe, along with co-plaintiff SRC Labs LLC (SRC), filed patent infring
3、ement suits against A and Microsoft Corp., respectively, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. These new lawsuits bring high-tech patents into the ongoing discussions at the intersection of patent ownership and sovereign immunity, discussions that implicate food & drug law
4、, federal Indian law, patent law, and state sovereign immunity. In their complaints, SRC and the Tribe allege that Amazon and Microsoft infringe several patents (the patents-in-suit) through operation of online services that use accelerators called “field-programmable gate arrays.” The patents-in-su