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- Title
ARTIFICIAL ENHANCEMENT: LIMITING ENHANCED DAMAGES AWARDS FOR PATENT INFRINGEMENT.
- Authors
OLAH, ZACHERY D.
- Abstract
When the Supreme Court decided Halo Electronics, Inc. v. Pulse Electronics, Inc., it completely changed the status of willfulness and enhanced damages in patent law. The Court overruled the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's long-standing Seagate test in favor of the more flexible Read standard without providing any guidance to the lower courts. District courts were left with broad discretion to award enhanced damages based on the nine Read factors. This decision led to confusion among the lower courts and inconsistent application of the law on patent damages, as evidenced by the cases discussed in this Comment. This Comment argues, based on trends in district court decisions post-Halo, that the Supreme Court should have provided more guidance to the district courts regarding how to properly and consistently apply the Read factors to enhanced damages analysis. This Comment proposes limitations to the Read factors aimed to guide district courts. It then reapplies these limitations to several district court cases to show that consistent application of the factors could still punish the "wanton and malicious pirate" that the Supreme Court was so worried about in Halo, while ensuring that enhanced damages are only used in rare cases. The proposed limitations also ensure that patent law does not discourage inventors from engaging in the innovative process for fear of awards of enhanced damages against them. In an area of the law where damages often reach into the hundreds of millions, it is important that damages statutes only apply to the more egregious cases.
- Subjects
UNITED States; PATENT infringement; DAMAGES (Law); PATENT suits; TRADE regulation; HALO Electronics Inc.; PATENT law; ACTIONS &; defenses (Law)
- Publication
American University Law Review, 2018, Vol 68, Issue 1, p305
- ISSN
0003-1453
- Publication type
Article