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Federal Circuit Affirms: No Enhanced Damages Against Willful Infringer Who Intentionally Copied

The Federal Circuit last week affirmed a district court’s denial of enhanced patent infringement damages in Sociedad Espanola de Electromedicina y Calidad v. Blue Ridge X-Ray Co., limiting the total damages to just the $852,000 jury award. In a previous summary of post-Halo cases, we noted the remarkable facts in the underlying trial: the defendants […]

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Willful Infringement Case Update – Eidos Display v. Chi Mei Innolux

Earlier this month, Judge Gilstrap of the Eastern District of Texas issued a post-trial decision penalizing a patent infringer for failing to form a good-faith non-infringement or invalidity position before the lawsuit. The court doubled the $4.1 million verdict for a total of $8.2 million in damages. Eidos Display, LLC v. Chi Mei Innolux Corp., […]

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Willful Infringement: More Clarity From the Federal Circuit — Exmark v. Briggs & Stratton and More

The Federal Circuit’s recent decision in Exmark v. Briggs & Stratton echoes the central point in our prior analysis of Halo v. Pulse that timing matters in determining whether an accused infringer did so willfully. The case leaves us with two key practical implications: Early investigation of patent threats can help avoid a finding of willful infringement; positions […]

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An IP Thought Leader Shares Her Experiences with Clearstone FTO

Jackie Hutter thinks differently about IP protection and business value creation, and has built her practice around maximizing businesses’ return on innovation investment. She has a unique ability to recognize and seize opportunity for her clients, rather than put up fences. In a recent article, Jackie shared her experiences using Clearstone FTO for patent search […]

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Pirates Among Us? How Have Courts Treated Willful Infringers in the Year Following Halo v. Pulse?

  As the Supreme Court’s Halo decision[1] recently celebrated its first anniversary, we take a look to see whether the lower courts have effectively rooted out the “wanton and malicious pirates” about whom the unanimous High Court was so gravely concerned. Have we found and singled out our swash-buckling ne’er-do-wells for public shaming, or have […]

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Three Keys to Effective Freedom-to-Operate Management

Freedom-to-operate is a murky world where the quality of the investigation greatly depends on the skills and resourcefulness of the lawyer or analyst doing the work. Best practices and standards of care are not very well defined and, even when systems exist, they are rarely adaptable to changing needs. It is our mission at ClearstoneIP […]

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ClearstoneIP Announces New FTO Platform

ClearstoneIP is proud to announce the beta release of its next generation freedom-to-operate management platform, Clearstone FTO. With guidance and feedback from IP industry leaders, we’ve infused this new web-based application with the ideal combination of best practices, workflows, and collaboration features to bring much-needed efficiency to a critical process. Some of the core features […]

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Accuracy and Speed in Patent Infringement Searching Need Not Be “One or the Other”

“Faster and better results at lower cost!” A claim so common it blends in with the hum of office chatter. We’d like to believe that patent searches could be turned around within a day or two, but it typically takes much longer.  We’d like to believe that the work returned to us includes everything we need […]

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Enfish v. Microsoft: The Pendulum Might Be Changing Direction For Software Patents, But Challenges Still Exist

The Federal Circuit’s recent decision in Enfish v. Microsoft Corp. was significant in that it was the first time that the court reversed a trial court’s finding of invalidity under § 101 based on the Supreme Court’s Alice decision, and only the second time that it upheld validity under that section post-Alice (the first being […]

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Know Your Portfolio

“Which of our patents cover what the competitors are doing?” “Where are the holes in our patent coverage?” “Which of our patents cover our products?” “What the heck is in our patent portfolio?!?!”   A patent portfolio is both a sword and a shield; leverage your analysis with Clearstone Elements to wield both with agility. These are […]

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