The Supreme Court will hear the case on whether the Federal Circuit correctly ruled that a finding of patent infringement automatically should result in the granting of a permanent injunction. Ebay has argued that this strengthens the incentives for the filing of patent suits, arguably problematic in the software sector because of the difficulty of avoiding patent infringement. This will heat up the legislative debate about whether to give judges the discretion to award damages instead of an injunction again. In effect, this would create compulsory licensing for all/any patents; it is hard to imagine how that would do more good than harm. Note to legislators: try loser pays instead?

posted by Solveig Singleton @ 11:48 AM | Patents

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