How to invalidate a patent with prior art?

Question

I currently work for a company being sued by a patent troll. We have a lawyer and a bunch of middle-men. I don't really get to talk to the lawyer. After tons of digging, I found prior art that existed before the patent was filed. 50+ companies are being sued for infringing upon this patent. What does our attorney need to do now once I give him proof of prior art?

Answer 1

I'm sure the attorney can figure out what to do with it depending on how on-target it is.

There is prior art and then is good prior art. From previous postings on Ask Patents you can see that many things people originally think are killer prior art turn out to be something the patentee long ago informed the examiner of or have otherwise been fully considered during the prosecution of the application. Unless you have a fair amount of experience reading patent claims it is hard to tell how on-target what you find might be.

Companies can be very tight-lipped about their litigation strategy, even with employees not directly involved in the case. I imagine you can just make sure the people handling the case are aware of what you found.