The Supreme Court held 7-2 that inter partes review does not violate Article III or the Seventh Amendment — because patents are public franchises granted by the government, which may reclaim or modify them through an executive agency proceeding without a jury trial, upholding the America Invents Act
The Supreme Court held 5-4 that when the USPTO institutes an inter partes review, it must adjudicate every claim challenged in the petition — rejecting the PTO’s practice of instituting IPR on only some of the challenged claims and leaving other claims unreviewable.
The Supreme Court held 7-1 that authorized patent sales both domestically and abroad exhaust all U.S. patent rights in the sold item — eliminating Lexmark’s attempt to use conditional patent licenses to control post-sale use and the Federal Circuit’s rule allowing foreign sales to preser
The Supreme Court held that the patent venue statute, § 1400(b), is the sole provision governing where patent suits may be filed, and that a corporation ‘resides’ only in its state of incorporation for patent venue purposes.
The Supreme Court held 7-1 that laches cannot be used as a defense to patent infringement that occurred within the six-year statute of limitations — extending Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (copyright) to patent law and eliminating a long-standing Federal Circuit precedent that had allowed laches t
The Supreme Court held that supplying a single component of a multi-component patented invention from the United States does not trigger liability under § 271(f)(1), which requires supplying ‘all or a substantial portion’ of the components.
The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s use of the ‘broadest reasonable interpretation’ standard for claim construction in inter partes review proceedings — validating the PTO’s approach over patent holders’ objections that IPR should us
The Supreme Court unanimously overruled the Federal Circuit’s Seagate objective-recklessness test for willful patent infringement and enhanced damages under § 284 — holding that courts have broad discretion to award enhanced damages in egregious cases of deliberate or wanton infringement, with
The Supreme Court reaffirmed the Brulotte rule that agreements requiring patent royalty payments beyond a patent’s expiration date are unenforceable as a matter of law.
The Supreme Court held 6-2 that a defendant’s good-faith belief that a patent is invalid is not a defense to induced infringement liability under § 271(b) — distinguishing between validity and infringement and holding that invalidity must be raised as a defense, not as a shield against the kno