Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law Volume 22 Issue 3 Issue 3 - 2020 Article 2 2020 Franchise Participants as Proper Patent Opponents: Walker Process Claims Robert W. Emerson Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/jetlaw Part of the Antitrust and Trade Regulation Commons, and the Intellectual Property Law Commons Recommended Citation Robert W. Emerson, Franchise Participants as Proper Patent Opponents: Walker Process Claims, 22 Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law 507 (2020) Available at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/jetlaw/vol22/iss3/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Vanderbilt Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law by an authorized editor of Scholarship@Vanderbilt Law. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Franchise Participants as Proper Patent Opponents: Walker Process Claims Robert W. Emerson* ABSTRACT Franchise parties may be sued for patent infringement, or they may seek to sue others for an antitrust injury as the result of a fraudulently obtained patent. Indeed, franchisors and franchisees may simultaneously fall under both categories-sued for infringement but aggrieved because the very basis of that suit is illegitimate in their eyes. These franchiseparties may turn for relief to a patent-validity challenge authorized in the seminal case Walker Process Equipment, Inc. v. Food Machine & Chemical Corp. Franchise participants-franchisees and franchisors alike-may be the ideal Walker Process claimants. When these types of cases occur, the damages within the franchise system are fairly uniform, as the harm often relates to a core element of franchising:licenses, shared by all parties to a franchise network.