SCOTUS Hands Marvel Patent Royalty Victory

In a case centered on a toy that lets kids shoot “webs” from their hands like Marvel’s Spider Man, the U.S. Supreme Court decided not to overturn a decades-old rule preventing patent holders from collecting royalties after the expiration date of the patent. Stephen Kimble, who invented the Web Blaster toy, sued Marvel after the comic book giant produced a similar toy in the 1990s. In 2001 the parties came to a settlement that provided Kimble with three percent of net sales – a total of $6 million in earnings until 2006, when Marvel licensed the rights to Hasbro and Kimble sued once again, over the calculation of royalties. The Court’s ruling, penned by Justice Elena Kagan, says stronger justification is needed to convince the Court to make a move that would threaten a “whole web of precedents.” Paraphrasing Spider Man himself, Kagan quoted: “In this world, with great power there must also come great responsibility.” A dissenting opinion written by Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and John Roberts said the old law “interferes with the ability of parties to negotiate licensing agreements that reflect the true value of a patent, and it disrupts contractual expectations.”