What are the penalties for patent infringement?
When a court or jury
determines that someone has infringed another’s patent, the infringer can face several
penalties. The general penalty is for the court to award damages to the
patent owner, requiring the infringer to pay a certain amount of money to the
patent owner. These damages are made up of several components.
The primary part of
financial damages which an infringer will have to pay is money to compensate
the inventor for the infringer’s wrongful use of the patented
invention. The specific amount, which can be determined by either a jury
or the court, is typically calculated by figuring out what the infringer would
have had to pay if he had legally licensed the invention, which is known as a
royalty rate. Under special circumstances, the court can take this royalty
amount and award triple the amount, known as “treble damages.” This is done
where the infringer was found to act willfully, that is,knowing there was a patent in existence and
infringing anyway. The reason treble damages are awarded, giving the patent
owner three times what he is entitled to, is to act as a deterrent to infringers. Otherwise,
someone could find out about a patent and infringe thinking that one of two
things happens - they do not get caught, or they get caught and simply pay what
they would have paid as a royalty anyway. In addition to the money intended to
compensate the patent owner, the infringer is also likely to be required to pay
interest on the money owed as well as the patent owner’s court costs (not his
attorney’s fees but, rather, things like the money spent filing documents with
the court).
Finally, separate and
apart from any financial award, the court will often issue an injunction, which
is an order that the infringer stop infringing the patent and never do so in
the future.
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Posted in: FAQ-PATENTS
