Patent trolls, be warned: It keeps getting harder for you to win injunctions in patent infringement cases. Recall that the Supreme Court’s 2006 decision in Ebay v. MercExchange abolished the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s general rule that a permanent injunction should follow a judgment of patent infringement. The justices replaced that presumption of injunctive relief with a new test that focuses, in part, on whether the plaintiff has been irreparably harmed. Now, in another blow to non-practicing entities, the Federal Circuit has abolished the presumption that patent infringement causes irreparable injury.
In a 2-1 decision, the Federal Circuit ruled that Robert Bosch, a manufacturer of car windshield wipers, is entitled to injunctive relief against a competitor, Pylon Manufacturing. The opinion, which overturns a ruling last November by Judge Sue Robinson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, confirms what lower court judges have been saying for years: that the Supreme Court’s Ebay decision killed off not only the general rule that there should be injunctive relief in patent infringement cases, but also the related presumption that patent infringement causes irreparable injury.
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