Bombardier Recreational Products Inc., et al. v. Arctic Cat Inc.

In Halo Electronics, Inc. v. Pulse Electronics, Inc., 136 S. Ct. 1923 (2016), this Court abrogated the twopart test for enhanced patent damages established by the Federal Circuit in In re Seagate Technology, LLC, 497 F. 3d 1360, and held that the “[t]he subjective willfulness of a patent infringer, intentional or knowing, may warrant enhanced damages, without regard to whether his infringement was objectively reckless.” The Federal Circuit subsequently held that “Halo did not disturb the substantive standard for the second prong of Seagate, subjective willfulness” and therefore for “subjective willfulness alone” to support enhanced damages, the risk of infringement must merely be “‘either known or so obvious that it should have been known to the accused infringer.’” The question presented is: Does a finding of willful infringement based on Seagate’s “should have been known” negligence standard violate the requirement that subjective willfulness be “intentional or knowing”? (i)