This isn’t a necessarily a standard-essential patent issue (and it’s been covered by many others such as IPLaw360 and Groklaw over the past couple days), but as something that could affect how parties enforce standard-essential patent rights in U.S. courts, we thought it’d be worth a quick post.  Earlier this week, Apple filed its opening brief in its appeal of Judge Lucy Koh’s decision to deny Apple a permanent injunction against Samsung.  In her post-trial decision applying the eBay analysis and denying an injunction, Judge Koh found that Apple failed to demonstrate a “causal nexus” between Samsung’s infringement of Apple’s utility and design patents and the irreparable harm to Apple (e.g., loss of market share and downstream sales).  Apple argues in its brief to the Federal Circuit that there was no need for it to demonstrate such a causal nexus, and that even if there is, the evidence does show a nexus between infringement and irreparable harm.
Continue Reading Apple urges Federal Circuit to eliminate or minimize “causal nexus” requirement for permanent injunctions