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The entire "laches" argument is getting old. BTW the defendant, not the court, is supposed to bring up a laches defense, not the court doing it for them.....

Here is an approach used for patent protections whereby a timeframe is present for a patent to expire and/or statute of limitations.

Here is my analogy:

SCOTUS has case law allowing laches defense to be set aside against another timeframe. In one case, the defendant says "the plaintiff took too long" but the court said HOLD ON! It is still in the window of another time frame, that is, statute of limitations or expiration of a patent.

I ASK: What is the purpose of protecting all Georgia election documents for 22 months but for the creation of some kind of window of time for redress????

Try this:

The U.S. Supreme Court, in the case of SCA Hygiene Prods. AB v. First Quality Baby Prods. LLC, basically eliminated Laches as a defense in patent infringement cases.

In the case, First Quality tried to assert a defense of Laches. They argued that SCA Hygiene accused First Quality of infringement back in 2003, but then delayed filing until 2010. This was more than three years after the United States Patent and Trademark Office completed SGA Hygiene's reexamination of their patent and confirmed its validity. The district court granted First Quality and allowed them to assert the doctrine of Laches.

SCA Hygiene appealed. The Federal Circuit held that the Laches defense remained available to accused infringers.

SCA Hygiene eventually brought their appeals all the way to the Supreme Court where it was overturned in a 7–1 decision, with only Justice Breyer dissenting. The case required the Court to decide whether the defense of Laches was a viable defense to patent infringement actions even though the charge of patent infringement was brought within the six-year statute of limitations. The Supreme Court found that the defense of Laches was an inappropriate claim.

The Supreme Court stated that Laches could not be used as a defense to any claim brought under the statute of limitations period.

Again in 2014, the Supreme Court held in the case of Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn Mayer, that Laches could not be used as a defense to throw out the claim for copyright infringement. The key issue in Petrella was the fact that the Copyright Act has a three-year statute of limitations for claiming damages. The Supreme Court stated that the statute of limitations trumps any other defense, including the Laches defense.

With these decisions, patent owners will be able to bring lawsuits against potential infringers. They can wait 10 to 15 years to file a patent infringement lawsuit and still be able to receive substantial damages for the six years period prior to filing the lawsuit. Defendants who are accused of patent infringement will have to look into defenses other than the Laches defense.