A method of removing “the plank in your own eye”

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus reportedly provided a set of anti-hypocrite statements all centered around cleaning-out human eyeballs:

 3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

Matthew 7:3-5 (NIV).  The Federal Circuit’s new decision in Myco Industries v. BlephEx, LLC (Fed. Cir. 2020), offers a modern and less-metaphorical treatment of the same issues.

BlephEx has a patent on a particular method using a swab to remove debris from a human eye. U.S. Patent No. 9,039,718 (treatment method for blepharitis).  Myco is an unwelcome newer competitor with its AB (anterior blepharitis) MAX product.  However, rather than suing for infringement, BlephEx apparently started threatening lawsuits against both Myco and also Myco’s customers (typically opthalmic/optometric medical professionals).

Myco filed suit – asking for a declaratory judgment of no infringement and also invalidity as well as seeking unfair-competition damages for bad-faith patent infringement statements by BlephEx.   

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