Coopervision Case

CooperVision (CVI) is an established contact lens maker. As one of the world 's largest makers CooperVision make soft lenses and "crazy" lenses. The contacts can change the color of your eyes or make them look like cat eyes or several other shapes with their "crazy" lenses. They are in 12 countries across five continents. CVI markets a broad range of lenses that create common and complicated eye defects, such as nearsightedness, astigmatism, myopia, and presbyopia. (CooperVision 2006)

CIBA Vision is a leader in research and development and manufacturing of contact lenses. CIBA products are in more than 70 countries. CIBA manufactures extended wear contacts, a daily disposable and of course contacts that can change the color of your eyes. CIBA
District Court for "the widespread and illegal supply and sale of contact lenses." (Roca, A 2006) The lawsuit, filed against C&C Trading Company and MAS Wholesale & Retail contend that both companies sold and dispersed color contact lenses without prescriptions or instructions for use, plus without the legally required medical bulletins. (Roca, A 2006) Also in November 2002 CIBA had filed a lawsuit against Ocular Sciences in a Federal district court in California claiming that Ocular 's Colors contacts lens violated five patents on CIBA color technology. CIBA was looking to have the court prevent Ocular Sciences from selling the lenses. (Roca, A 2006) A settlement in October 2002 was reached between CIBA and CooperVision regarding the patent-infringement lawsuit involving the color contact lens issue. (Roca, A 2006) CIBA agreed to license the color lens patents to CooperVision for a royalty and some cross-license of some of CooperVision 's intellectual property rights. This agreement will allow CooperVision to continue to sell the existing lens products throughout the world. (Roca, A 2006) Since a settlement was reached, some types of mediation or arbitration took place rather than have a jury trial. This action turned out to be a win-win situation for both sides as the sell of the lenses continued by both sides they could get back to business and CIBA was able to make money from the patents with a royalty and was able
The prospective for large damage awards that come from copyright breach means it is wise to understand some important aspects of evaluating the risks with patent encroachment The most common thing to have happen is a cease and desist letter will be sent that has some very basic facts like the competitors exclusive rights and the infringing companies ' product. If willful infringement is charge and found the damages can be increased by as much as three times the actual damages, making it a very costly court battle. A patent opinion is usually written and will serve many purposes. If infraction is found the opinion may suggest ways to minimize or reduce the risk by modifying the product. The opinion can be used for devising a plan for responding to the competitors cease and desist letter and the opinion can be used in litigation to rebut a charge of willful infringement. An important note is the courts are holding corporate executives personally liable for patent infringement at a greater