Dan Brean and Bryan Clark: Casting Aspersions in Patent Trials

There are two main bases for rectifying misconduct in a patent case. First, a prevailing patentee can collect treble damages from a willful infringer. Second, on the flip side, a prevailing patent infringement defendant can force the patentee to pay attorneys'  fees for bringing a claim in bad faith.  Currently, the question of whether the infringer's actions were "willful" is decided by a jury, but the question of whether the patentee brought the case in "bad faith", such as to harass or eek out a settlement, is decided by a judge without jury input. In their new article, Casting Aspersions in Patent Trials, forthcoming in the University of Pittsburgh Law Review, my Akron Law colleague Professor Dan Brean, along with Bryan Clark, argue that, to the extent the parties get the opportunity to "cast aspersions" on the other side in front of the jury, the parties should be on equal footing in doing so. Better yet, they argue, both issues should be decided by a judge. The jury should not be involved in deciding either willfulness by infringers or bad faith by patentees.

The majority of the paper is devoted to convincing the reader that this is the right result, and to demonstrating that, contrary to common perception, the Seventh Amendment requires neither issue to go to a jury.  They also do a deep dive into similar scenarios in other areas of law, where the character of both parties becomes an issue–such as parallel considerations of the defendant's and the victim's character in the criminal context. They point out that, when character evidence is introduced, "the Federal Rules of Evidence contemplate that juries should be able to consider the 'character' of the defendant if the victim’s character is put in issue. ... this important exception ensures a fair trial: if the criminal defendant casts aspersions at the victim, the victim may do the same so that the jury can determine if the defendant was truly the culpable one." The authors also discuss similar fairness policies surrounding comparative negligence in tort law.

The authors conclude that, in the best case scenario, "both willfulness and bad-faith enforcement should be resolved by judges after trial when matters of liability and damages have already been established, and when the risk of 'bad actor' arguments tainting the liability and damages verdicts is gone."  In the second best scenario, they argue that so long as the status quo of trying defendant's willfulness before juries persists, "the more immediate question" is what to do about defendants who allege the patentee is asserting its patent in bad faith, which, as said, is currently tried before the judge. It is "fundamentally unfair," they contend, to "require defendants to endure aspersions cast by a patentee at trial but be unable to demonstrate how the patentee is itself engaged in culpable misconduct when proving bad faith." Thus, to the extent willfulness is tried to a jury, bad-faith enforcement by patentees should also be considered and decided by the same jury in order to even up the score.

The paper is clearly written and quite timely, given the Supreme Court's parallel holdings in Octane Fitness, recalibrating the standard for bad faith determinations under Section 285, and in Halo, doing the same for willfulness determinations under Section 284. If there is a chance to change current practice, and to better align the two remedial rules, this could be it.