IP Newsflash

A federal judge in the Western District of North Carolina concluded that a jury’s finding of willfulness under In re Seagate still stands after the Supreme Court’s Halo ruling. In Sociedad, a jury found that defendants Blue Ridge X-Ray Company, Inc.; DRGEM USA, Inc.; and DRGEM Corporation infringed Sociedad’s patent. The jury also found that the DRGEM defendants willfully infringed. The jury was presented with two questions on willfulness that modeled the two prong test developed in Seagate—the controlling authority at the time. The jury returned a verdict that the DRGEM defendants satisfied the subjective prong of the Seagate inquiry, but the court deferred entering a judgment in order to consider the objective prong of the Seagate willfulness analysis.