Patents are a very important aspect of modern intellectual property law but with emergence of patent holding companies, colloquially known as 'patent trolls', innovation in industry has started to suffer. If you ever land in a situation where any product of your company falls into a patent dispute with a patent troll, it is best to get that patent invalidated.
Note that since it is you who wants to defeat the patent and get it invalidated, you will have to bear the burden of proof for this.
The very first ground on which you can get the patent invalidated is to prove that the patented invention is not novel. For this you will have to locate a similar invention which was available earlier. It does not matter that the earlier product was patented or not, if the invention can be proved to be in existence, the patent becomes invalid on the grounds that it lacks any novelty.
The second ground to defeat a patent is to prove that the current owner obtained the patent in a wrongful manner. According to the intellectual property related statutes in most countries which follow the English Common Law system, the patent is only granted to the actual inventor. Even in case the inventor is original but has failed to disclose appropriate amount of information or if the disclosed information is proven incorrect, the patent can be defeated on the grounds of a wrongful grant.
The third concept, based on which a patent can be declared as invalid is the degree of obviousness of the invention whose patent is in question. Fire cannot be patented, nor can water be patented. Use of oxygen by humans to breathe is another example of obviousness based on which a patent cannot be granted.
The fourth concept on which a patent can be declared as invalid and defeated is to prove that the applicant did not declare enough information about his patent applications in foreign countries. Due to the concept of sovereignty, patent in one country is not applicable in other country, simply because every country has its own laws. If the applicant does not declare information about foreign patent filings, it may lead to a lot of confusion if a foreign company claims that patent or the right to manufacture. Thus IP regulators ask all patent applicants to disclose foreign patent applications data, failing which patent is declared invalid.
Finally, the ground based on which most of the patents are declared invalid- prove that the subject of patent cannot be classified as an invention. To do this, you will have to prove that the subject is out of the guidelines and criteria of IP laws that define what is patentable and what is not.
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