On remand from the Supreme Court, an en banc Federal Circuit expanded direct infringement liability beyond the single-actor rule, holding that an entity can be liable for another’s performance of method steps when it conditions participation or a benefit on that performance and establishes the
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.
An en banc Federal Circuit overruled its prior ‘strong presumption’ that claim terms without the word ‘means’ are not means-plus-function limitations, holding that terms like ‘module’ that claim a function without reciting sufficient structure are subject to Secti
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
The Federal Circuit affirmed infringement findings in a spinal implant patent case but remanded on damages, holding that lost profits are limited to products the patentee itself sells and that convoyed sales damages require a functional relationship between the patented and unpatented products — sig
In the first Federal Circuit decision reviewing an inter partes review (IPR) final written decision, the court affirmed the PTAB’s use of the ‘broadest reasonable interpretation’ claim construction standard in IPR proceedings — a ruling that set the rules for thousands of subsequen
The Supreme Court held that appellate courts must apply clear-error review to subsidiary factual findings underlying patent claim construction, while legal conclusions remain subject to de novo review.
The Federal Circuit held that exporting a single ‘main’ or ‘essential’ component of a patented multi-component product from the U.S. can constitute infringement under Section 271(f)(1) — a ruling the Supreme Court unanimously reversed in 2017, holding that a single component
The Federal Circuit provided the most comprehensive guidance yet on how to calculate reasonable royalties for standard-essential patents (SEPs) subject to FRAND commitments, holding that damages must reflect incremental value of the invention rather than value derived from standardization, and that
The Federal Circuit affirmed its two-part Seagate test for enhanced patent damages, refusing to award treble damages even where a jury found willful infringement — a holding the Supreme Court would reverse in 2016 by eliminating the objective recklessness requirement and restoring broader district c