Patent Slugfest

This article focuses on one of the particular patents that have impacted five companies over a span of 10 years. In early 2000, DeMarini sold the Eggiman patent to Wilson Sporting Goods and his company joined forces with Wilson, which itself was faced with a new competitor for the DeMarini double-walled bat. The Eggiman double-walled bat leaf spring design was different from and had advantages over previously known bats. But, because of the existence of these two prior patents, Eggiman’s patent could not cover every possible configuration of an insert within a bat frame or, in the case of the Worth EST bat, the transposition of the frame and the insert. To win a patent, some requirement that is not found in prior technologies must be claimed in the patent application. If that same requirement is not present in a competitor's product, however, there is no patent infringement. Make a contrast of “improvement patents” with disruptive technologies that can be more broadly covered via a patent.