Supreme Court granted cert. to resolve the question of whether or not a defendant’s belief that a patent is invalid is a defense against a charge of inducing infringement. The question appears to rest on Judge Newman’s characterization given in her dissent from the majority opinion (Proust, O’Malley). (A copy of this decision can be found at the end of this post.) However, the majority opinion appears more nuanced to me:
“Under our case law, it is clear that a good-faith belief of non-infringement is relevant evidence that ends to show that an accused infringer lacked the intent required to be held liable for induced infringement.”
I read this as simply stating that the belief can provide evidence of lack of specific intent to induce acts of infringement. The evidence may be “strong,” such as a competent opinion rendered before the offending acts, or “weak,” e.g. the opinion of a non-attorney or a just incompetent opinion. In fact, the majority makes an effort to “spank”‘ Judge Newman in footnote 1:
