Mike Hartmann Profile:  Understanding the People Behind Patent Litigation

Patent law sometimes seems esoteric and impersonal. But behind many controversies are real, human stories, says H. Michael Hartmann, a Member at Leydig Voit & Mayer, Ltd. 

Hartmann relates the tale of Otto Wichterle, a professor who earned precious little from inventing the soft contact lens in the 1960s because he lived in Communist Czechoslovakia. Hartmann appears in a 2005 documentary about the scientist titled Troublemaking Genius. 

Wichterle and the United States Patent Development Corporation retained C. Frederick Leydig, who mentored Hartmann.  The first defendant, Bausch & Lomb, was the exclusive licensee, but it wanted to break the patents. It had been teetering financially before introducing its line of soft contacts. Bausch accepted the patents and settled after about a year.

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This article originally appeared in Leading Lawyers Magazine — Business Edition for 2009 and has been posted with permission. © 2009 Law Bulletin Publishing Co.