{"id":310,"date":"2015-12-16T13:05:10","date_gmt":"2015-12-16T18:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=310"},"modified":"2016-01-09T16:36:09","modified_gmt":"2016-01-09T21:36:09","slug":"a-connection-between-the-patented-feature-and-consumer-demand-is-enough-to-support-an-injunction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=310","title":{"rendered":"A “Connection” Between the Patented Feature and Consumer Demand Is Enough to Support an Injunction"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.<\/em>, [2014-1802] (Fed. Cir. 2015), the Federal Circuit vacated and remanded the denial of Apple’s request for a permanent injunction.<\/p>\n

The trial court denied Apple’s proposed injunction despite public interest favoring the injunction, and the\u00a0narrowness of Apple\u2019s proposed injunction (which tilted the balance of hardships in Apple\u2019s favor), because these\u00a0factors did not overcome Apple\u2019s lack of irreparable harm.<\/p>\n

Apple argued to the district court that it was irreparably harmed by Samsung\u2019s infringement due to damage to its reputation as an innovator, lost market share, and lost downstream sales.\u00a0 The district\u00a0court rejected Apple\u2019s arguments regarding irreparable harm,\u00a0finding\u00a0that Apple had not shown that a causal nexus connected Samsung\u2019s infringement to these alleged injuries.<\/p>\n

The Federal Circuit held that a causal nexus linking the harm and the infringing acts must be established regardless of whether the injunction is sought for an entire product or is narrowly limited to particular features, rejecting Apple’s argument to the contrary.<\/p>\n

The Federal Circuit found the district erred, however, with respect to Apple’s allegations of lost market share and lost downstream sales.\u00a0 The Federal Circuit said that the patent owner proving a causal nexus requires the patentee to show \u201csome connection\u201d between the patented features and the demand for the infringing products.\u00a0 The Federal Circuit said that it was\u00a0legal error for the district court to effectively require Apple to prove that the infringement was the sole cause of the lost downstream sales.\u00a0 Instead, the Court should have determined whether the features “impact” customer’s purchasing decision.\u00a0 The Federal Circuit said that the fact that the infringing features are not the only cause of the lost sales may well lessen the weight of any alleged irreparable harm, it does not eliminate it entirely.\u00a0 Thus, the\u00a0district court thus erred when it required Apple to prove that the infringing features were the exclusive or predominant reason why consumers bought Samsung\u2019s products to find irreparable harm.<\/p>\n

The Court concluded that on the record, applying the correct legal standard for irreparable harm, Apple has established irreparable harm.<\/p>\n

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In Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., [2014-1802] (Fed. Cir. 2015), the Federal Circuit vacated and remanded the denial of Apple’s request for a permanent injunction. The trial court denied Apple’s proposed injunction despite public interest favoring the injunction, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=310"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":311,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions\/311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}