Court Opinion

ID: 9493166
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:00:07.453132+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:41.457091
License: Public Domain

RADER, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
While joining the court’s conclusions on all issues, I write separately because, in my judgment, the Patent Act leaves no room for any de minimis or experimental use excuses for infringement. Because the Patent Act confers the right to preclude “use,” not “substantial use,” no room remains in the law for a de minimis excuse. Similarly, because intent is irrelevant to patent infringement, an experimental use excuse cannot survive. When infringement is proven either minimal or wholly non-commercial, the damage computation process provides full flexibility for courts to preclude large (or perhaps any) awards for minimal infringements.
I.
This court affirms the district court’s denial of SEC’s de minimis and experimental use excuses, but I read the Patent Act to preclude these excuses altogether. SEC essentially asserts an affirmative defense, combining a plea based on the amount or quantum of infringing activity {de minimis) with a plea based on the character or intent of the infringing activity (experimental use). Although courts have occasionally addressed these separate excuses as if they were one, see, e.g., Douglas v. United States, 181 USPQ 170, 1974 WL 20548 (Ct. Cl. Trial Division 1974), aff'd, 206 Ct.Cl. 96, 510 F.2d 364 (1975), clarity calls for separate analyses.
Since its inception, this court has not tolerated the notion that a little infringe*1353ment — de minimis infringement — is acceptable infringement or not infringement at all. The statute states directly that any unauthorized use of a patented invention is an infringement. See 35 U.S.C. § 271(a) (1994). Thus, the statute leaves no leeway to excuse infringement because the in-fringer only infringed a little. Rather, the statute accommodates concerns about de minimis infringement in damages calculations. See Deuterium Corp. v. United States, 19 Cl.Ct. 624, 631, 14 USPQ2d 1636, 1642 (1990) (“This court questions whether any infringing use can be de min-imis. Damages for an extremely small infringing use may be de minimis, but infringement is not a question of degree.”). Although not influencing the finding of infringement itself, the amount, quantum, or economic effect of wrongful conduct is central to the damages assessment. For these reasons, this court might better have declined SEC’s invitation to engage in an inherently subjective determination of how little infringement is necessary to escape infringement liability. The Patent Act simply authorizes no such conjecture.
II.
Turning next to the experimental use excuse, neither the statute nor any past Supreme Court precedent gives any reason to excuse infringement because it was committed with a particular purpose or intent, such as for scientific experimentation or idle curiosity. Rather, the Supreme Court and this court have recently reiterated that intent is irrelevant to infringement. See Warner-Jenkinson Co. v. Hilton Davis Chem. Co., 520 U.S. 17, 34, 117 S.Ct. 1040, 137 L.Ed.2d 146 (1997) (“Application of the doctrine of equivalents, therefore, is akin to determining literal infringement, and neither requires proof of intent.”); Hilton Davis Chem. Co. v. Warner-Jenkinson Co. 62 F.3d 1512, 1519, 35 USPQ2d 1641, 1646 (Fed.Cir.1995) (“Intent is not an element of infringement.”), rev’d on other grounds, 520 U.S. 17, 117 S.Ct. 1040, 137 L.Ed.2d 146 (1997). These recent pronouncements should dispose of the intent-based prong of SEC’s argument.
Before Wamer-Jenkinson, this court addressed arguments based on the character or intent of infringement in Roche Products, Inc. v. Bolar Pharmaceutical Co., Inc., 733 F.2d 858, 863, 221 USPQ 937, 940 (Fed.Cir.1984); but see 35 U.S.C. § 271(e); Glaxo, Inc. v. Novopharm, Ltd., 110 F.3d 1562, 1568, 42 USPQ2d 1257, 1262 (1997) (noting that § 271(e) changes the result in Roche). The Supreme Court’s recent reiteration that infringement does not depend on the intent underlying the allegedly infringing conduct, to my eyes, precludes any further experimental use defense, even in the extraordinarily narrow form recognized in Roche. Of course, even if the experimental use excuse retains some lingering vitality, the slightest commercial implication will render the “philosophical inquiry/experimental use” doctrine inapplicable, as occurs in the court’s resolution today. Therefore, I concur completely in the court’s resolution of this case, although I would lay to rest permanently SEC’s infringement excuses which find no support in the Patent Act.