Thursday, Aug 21, 2008
What do you get when you design a condom that men want to use? Sued. Inside the twisted patent battle over prophylactics.
Oct 24, 2005 | In a courtroom in New Jersey, lawyers are arguing about condom size.
The case is a patent-infringement suit. In the normal run of events, such cases are mind-numbingly boring. But when the product in question is a condom, and the patents at issue refer to design modifications that are supposed to increase male pleasure during the sexual act, you're not dealing with a normal legal situation. This is a case in which the technical question of how a penis is properly stimulated is of critical importance not just to the prospect of great sex but also to such momentous affairs as the fight against AIDS. Most people will likely agree: There is nothing boring about that.
We'll get back to condom size in a moment. (Suffice it to say, size matters.) For now, the basics are this: A company called Portfolio Technologies (PTI) is suing the conglomerate that owns the makers of Trojan condoms, who recently brought to market a popular condom called the Twisted Pleasure.
PTI owns the rights to two patents embodied in the legendary Pleasure Plus condom, a "male prophylactic device" that sent a thrill through the industry and condom aficionados with its P-shaped "pouch on pouch" design some 15 years ago. Inside a baggy pouch at the end of the condom, the Pleasure Plus included an extra dab of latex that stimulated the man at just the point where other condoms let him down.
PTI believes that the Twisted Pleasure infringes on its patents and claims that its successful entry into the condom marketplace has caused PTI severe economic pain. An estimated 6 to 9 billion condoms are used worldwide each year -- so getting an edge on the competition can mean serious profits.
This isn't PTI's first attempt to defend its patents. Five years ago, it failed in a similar effort to prevent another condom, the Inspiral, from being distributed in the United States. And here is where a kinky story starts to get a little bizarre. All three condoms -- the Pleasure Plus, the Inspiral and the Trojan Twisted Pleasure -- were designed by the same man, one Dr. Alla Venkata Krishna Reddy.
Dubbed by one condom retailer "the Leonardo of condom design," Reddy was the original owner of the patents now held by PTI. But Reddy's first condom company failed in the mid-'90s and he lost control of his patents in a bankruptcy auction. He did not, however, lose his zeal for the condom business. He returned to his native India and continued to tweak his innovative designs, and with the help of partners in the United States, soon reentered the American market, first with the Inspiral, and then with the Twisted Pleasure.
But his return to the America was greeted with great displeasure by Portfolio Technologies, the company formed to exploit the patents that Reddy had given up. PTI regards Reddy's new condoms as far too similar to his old ones. So, tragically, Reddy is being sued for violating his own patents.
The story of how Reddy lost control of his creation but returned to his native India to continue his quest for the perfect condom, only to find himself enmeshed in half a decade of litigative vituperation centered on prophylactic design, is a tale with more twists than any condom on the market. But there's more at stake in this legal battle than simply shelf placement at Walgreens. Reddy's great contribution to the universe of condom design, say his admirers, was to change the traditional perception of prophylactics. Instead of seeing them solely as barriers designed to block sperm from getting to the promised land, or to prevent the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases, Reddy viewed them as devices that could help enhance male pleasure.
What a concept! If condom use could make the act of sex more pleasurable, rather than less, then not only would a condom inventor stand to make a buck -- but the world would be a better, safer, healthier place.
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