licensee estoppel
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 395 U.S. 653 - Lear, Inc. v. Adkins · 1969Most cited · 1,447 citing opinions
so long as a licensee is operating under a license agreement he is estopped to deny the validity of his licensor's patent in a suit for royalties under the agreement. The theory underlying this doctrine is that a licensee should not be permitted to enjoy the benefit afforded by the agreement while simultaneously urging that the patent which forms the basis of the agreement is void
How often courts cite the cases defining “licensee estoppel”
Court decisions citing the 2 opinions that defined “licensee estoppel” — 2,445 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 2 definitions, chronological · 1950–1969
- ORIGINAL
The general rule is that the licensee under a patent license agreement may not challenge the validity of the licensed patent in a suit for royalties due under the contract.