The general consensus is that the Supreme Court's June
decision in Halo Electronics v. Pulse Electronics eased
the path to proving willfulness, as discussed previously on
IP Litigation Current. Many speculated that one result of the
Halo decision would be an increase in the value of
patents, since a finding of willfulness may lead to trebling of
damages.
While Halo did away with the objective prong of the
willfulness inquiry, and also clarified that the requisite standard
of proof for willfulness is a preponderance of the evidence as
opposed to clear and convincing evidence, the question
post-Halo has been: Now what? After all, the Supreme Court
instructed that district courts "'be guided by [the] sound
legal principles' developed over nearly two centuries of
application and interpretation of the patent act."
Halo, 136 S. Ct. 1923, 1935 (2016) (quoting Martin v.
Franklin Capital Corp., 546 U.S. 132, 136 (2005)). How have
district courts have applied such guidance
