THE AFTERMATH OF EBAY. PREDICTING WHEN DISTRICT COURTS WILL GRANT PERMANENT INJUNCTIONS IN PATENT CASES

摘要

When the Supreme Court agreed to hear eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, LLC, patent practitioners braced themselves for a sea change: would district courts continue to issue injunctions as a matter of course once a court adjudged a patent valid and a defendant's actions infringing? For over twenty years, this had been the Federal Circuit's general rule, and the patent community benefited from the predictability of this rule governing the grant of permanent injunctions. On May 15, 2006, the Court, overruling the Federal Circuit, held a district court must apply a four-factor test in determining whether to grant an injunction in patent cases.