Willful Patent Infringement: Will Seagate Impact Strategies for Bringing and Defending Claims?

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's decision in In re Seagate Technology LLC was widely recognized as a landmark decision for U.S. patent law. Previously, based on Underwater Devices Inc. v. Morrison-Knudsen Co., willful patent infringement could be found, and up to treble damages recovered by the plaintiff, by proving merely that the infringing party failed to exercise an affirmative duty of due care to avoid patent infringement. In light of the Seagate ruling, plaintiffs now must do significantly more to establish willful infringement by proving that the infringing party acted with an objective degree of recklessness.

If your business relies on protecting your patents and other intellectual property (IP), please join us for a Foley Executive Briefing Series seminar addressing the following questions:

• What greater protections and pitfalls have developed under the modified standard for willful infringement?
• How has this modified standard impacted the traditional strategy of obtaining opinions of counsel as a defense against willfulness allegations?
• Under this modified standard, what is the scope of waiver of the attorney-client and work product privileges when an infringing party defends itself against charges of willful infringement?

These and other issues will be addressed in an informal, interactive panel session led by Foley IP Litigation Partners Thomas I. Elkind and Marc N. Henschke.

For questions about registering, please contact Wendy Decker at wdecker@foley.com or 617.342.4000.

Willful Patent Infringement: Will Seagate Impact Strategies for Bringing and Defending Claims? is part of the Foley Executive Briefing Series. Learn more about upcoming programs in the series at Foley.com/FEBS.