This chapter discusses the law and policy of monetary awards — including exemplary damages and litigation cost recoveries — that go beyond the compensatory damages to which prevailing parties in patent litigation are normally entitled. Up to treble damages are authorized in the United States for knowing infringement, but attorney fees are awarded only in exceptional cases. The rest of the world tends toward the opposite: Attorney fees are awarded as a matter of course, but punitive damages are generally prohibited as against public policy.This chapter discusses the theory, law, and policy of enhanced damages and attorney fee awards in the United States, Europe, and Asia. While the availability of enhanced damages and fees can bring accused infringers that might otherwise “hold out” to the table, care must also be taken to ensure that it does not discourage productive learning from patents or challenges to overbroad and vague patents. Rather than endorse any single set of doctrinal rules, there is a recommendation for further research into a number of unanswered questions about current and potential future configurations, in order to inform future policymaking.

This chapter addresses two types of monetary remedies for patent infringement: (1) recovery of the patentee’s lost profits and (2) disgorgement of the infringer’s profits.  Both remedies make a comparison between what actually happened and a hypothetical “but for” world in which no infringement occurred. But the two remedies have substantially different objectives:  Lost profits are intended to compensate the patentee by restoring it to the position it would have occupied absent infringement, while disgorgement may serve other purposes, including deterrence, recapturing wrongful gains, and encouraging ex ante licensing of patented technology. Section 1 addresses several key issues regarding lost profits awards, including the availability and standard of proof, the role of noninfringing alternatives, potential recovery for the sale of related but unpatented goods, whether and how to apportion lost profits awards for complex products, and potential recovery for other infringement-related harms.  Section 2 describes the justifications for, and availability of, the disgorgement (accounting) remedy in major patent systems and, additionally, analyzes a number of questions related to calculating such awards. In both sections, recommendations are made and areas for further research are identified.

This chapter provides a critical review of the literature relating to remedies for patent infringement in the context of complex products, with a focus on the underlying theoretical issues of holdup, holdout, and royalty stacking. Issues considered here include: the conceptually appropriate benchmark for a fair return to a patentee; the theory of holdup and mechanisms by which holdup can be mitigated; placing the holdup debate within the context of property rules vs. liability rules; forcing patentees to accept lower royalties though holdout; and a review of empirical evidence related to holdup and royalty stacking.

Although competition law and IP law probably pursue complementary goals, competition laws can (1) affect remedies available for patent infringement; and/or otherwise (2) limit the conduct of patentees, particularly when transferring or licensing their patents. This chapter discusses the cases in which tensions between the protection of patents in complex products and the competition laws have arisen or may arise, particularly as regards the ability of owners of standard essential patents (SEPs) to monetize their patents either by seeking an injunction against implementers or by refusing to grant licenses complying with previously given commitments — generally, commitments to license on fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) terms. This chapter also examines potential competition law constraints on the pricing of patent licenses, other licensing terms, multilevel licensing and level discrimination, patent pools, sale of patent portfolios ,and patent acquisitions.

Information and communications technology products are indispensable tools of modern life across the globe. Smartphones and laptops connect to a vast global computing infrastructure. Sophisticated medical equipment is ubiquitous in hospitals. Robotics increasingly enable manufacturing of every kind of product. Sensor networks facilitate the flow of urban traffic. The emergence of autonomous vehicles, products enabling augmented and virtual reality, the broad array of “Internet of Things” devices, and countless other innovations suggest that these kinds of products will continue to play an ever-growing role in the modern global economy.

Patent systems commonly empower courts to order accused or adjudged infringers to refrain from continuing infringing conduct in the future. Some patentees file suit for the primary purpose of obtaining and enforcing an injunction against infringement by a competitor, and even in cases in which the patentee is willing to license an invention to an accused infringer for an agreed price, the indirect monetary value of an injunction against future infringement can dwarf the amount a finder of fact is likely to award as compensation for past infringement. In some of these cases, an injunction, if granted, would impose costs on accused infringers or third parties that go well beyond the more intrinsic value of the patented technology. This chapter explores the theory behind injunctive relief in patent cases, surveys the availability of this remedy in major patent systems, and suggests a general framework for courts to use when deciding whether injunctive relief is appropriate in individual cases.