PORTLAND, Maine — Digital and print mapmaker DeLorme will not get a hearing before the nation’s top court, despite pleas from some of the world’s top electronics manufacturers that the U.S. International Trade Commission unfairly slapped DeLorme with a $6.2 million patent infringement penalty.
The penalty dealt with certain inReach GPS handsets DeLorme manufactured with an imported plastic belt clip. The Virginia-based BriarTek Inc. argued successfully to the commission that the imported clip caused DeLorme’s product to infringe on a patent it held for a satellite communication system.
The Supreme Court decided Nov. 28 not to take up the DeLorme case , meaning the $6.2 million ITC penalty stands. But it leaves unanswered the question of whether the ITC overstepped its authority in the case, as DeLorme and other manufacturers contended.
Before the court declined to hear the case, a group of major electronics manufacturers and the ITC filed briefs related to DeLorme’s petition.
For DeLorme, the case has limited impact beyond the penalty, as a separate federal appeals court ruling last November threw out the BriarTek patent that was the basis for the ITC fine.
The Maine-based attorney who argued the early stages of the appeal for DeLorme argued that invalidation of parts of the BriarTek patent made the ITC’s decision unfair.
“The thought that they could penalize someone for importing parts that don’t infringe any patent — and that the patent is invalid — smacks of unfairness,” said attorney Peter Brann in a July interview.
The Washington D.C. firm Sidley Austin handled the bulk of the appeals process to the Supreme Court.
The penalty predates DeLorme’s sale in February to the international GPS giant Garmin, which last year posted profits of $1.54 billion.
The Supreme Court typically receives about 7,000 to 8,000 requests to hear cases each year, granting full review with oral arguments to only about 80 of those cases, according to the court’s website.