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Text: The parties to this litigation are manufacturers of exercise equipment. The respondent, ICON Health & Fitness, Inc., owns U. S. Patent No. 6,019,710 (’710 patent), which discloses an elliptical exercise machine that allows for adjustments to fit the individual stride paths of users. ICON is a major manufacturer of exercise equipment, but it has never commercially sold the machine disclosed in the ’710 patent. The petitioner, Octane Fitness, LLC, also manufactures exercise equipment, including elliptical machines known as the Q45 and Q47.

ICON sued Octane, alleging that the Q45 and Q47 infringed several claims of the ’710 patent. The District Court granted Octane’s motion for summary judgment, concluding that Octane’s machines did not infringe ICON’s patent. 2011 WL 2457914 (D Minn., June 17, 2011). Octane then moved for attorney’s fees under §285. Applying the Brooks Furniture standard, the District Court denied Octane’s motion. 2011 WL 3900975 (D Minn., Sept. 6, 2011). It determined that Octane could show neither that ICON’s claim was objectively baseless nor that ICON had brought it in subjective bad faith. As to objective baselessness, the District Court rejected Octane’s ——————

inference of bad faith to establish exceptionality under §285, unless the

circumstances as a whole show a lack of recklessness on the patentee’s

part.” Id., at 1314. Chief Judge Rader wrote a concurring opinion that

sharply criticized Brooks Furniture, 738 F. 3d, at 1318–1320; the court,

he said, “should have remained true to its original reading of” §285, id.,

at 1320.

argument that the judgment of noninfringement “should have been a foregone conclusion to anyone who visually inspected” Octane’s machines. Id., *2. The court explained that although it had rejected ICON’s infringement arguments, they were neither “frivolous” nor “objectively baseless.” Id., *2–*3. The court also found no subjective bad faith on ICON’s part, dismissing as insufficient both “the fact that [ICON] is a bigger company which never commercialized the ’710 patent” and an e-mail exchange between two ICON sales executives, which Octane had offered as evidence that ICON had brought the infringement action “as a matter of commercial strategy.”5 Id., *4.

ICON appealed the judgment of noninfringement, and Octane cross-appealed the denial of attorney’s fees. The Federal Circuit affirmed both orders. 496 Fed. Appx. 57 (2012). In upholding the denial of attorney’s fees, it rejected Octane’s argument that the District Court had “applied an overly restrictive standard in refusing to find the case exceptional under §285.” Id., at 65. The Federal Circuit declined to “revisit the settled standard for exceptionality.” Ibid.

We granted certiorari, 570 U. S. __ (2013), and now reverse.