Law Commons^™

Enhanced Damages Analysis Post-Seagate, Christopher Comiskey

Christopher Comiskey

With section 284 of the Patent Act, the Congress provided permissively that a court “may” enhance damages. Shortly after the birth of the Court of Appeals of the Federal Circuit, the court ‘grafted’ a showing of willfulness as a necessary precursor to enhancing damages. For almost a quarter century the rule has required a threshold fact finding before allowing a District Court to exert its own ‘discretion’ as to how much to enhance damages, if at all. While the District Courts have had freedom to exert there discretion, the Federal Circuit has required that they weigh out a set of …