That is an extraordinary claim. Defend your position.
I recall a case back when we were worried about Japan taking over. There was some guy, an American, who was savvy about patent law, who patented industrial robots by more or less writing documents to the effect, “I patent industrial robots,” which satisfied the letter of patent law. He then waited for others to invent, develop, and utilize industrial robots, and sued them for patent infringement. This was namely the Japanese - Mitsubishi et al. Of course, a US court found in his favor and he walked away with Hundreds of Millions of Dollars. Look it up.