Brigham and Women's Hospital, Inc., et al. v. Perrigo Company, et al.

The Patent Act expressly provides for compensatory damages. 35 U.S.C. § 284. When the issues of patent infringement and compensatory damages are tried before a jury, judgment as a matter of law setting aside the jury’s verdict is only appropriate if no reasonable jury could have come to the same verdict. In addition to a jury’s award of compensatory damages, the court post-judgment may award interest, costs, attorney fees, and enhanced damages (expressed as a multiplier of up to three times compensatory damages). The damage multiplier (i.e., enhancement) and the award of attorney fees for an “exceptional” case are both punitive in nature and determined in the district court’s discretion in light of a litigant’s misconduct. The questions presented by this petition for writ of certiorari are:

1. Whether the punitive enhancement under 35 U.S.C. § 284 is collateral to, and therefore not a merits ruling necessary for final judgment under this Court’s reasoning in Budinich v. Becton Dickinson & Co., 486 U.S. 196 (1988) (attorney fee award is “collateral”).

2. Whether this Court should exercise its supervisory powers to stop the alarming trend of the Federal Circuit’s setting aside patent infringement jury verdicts by not applying deferential appellate review that requires consideration of both sides’ evidence, and precludes independent “weighing of the evidence” and making “[c]redibility determinations,” contrary to Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Prods., Inc., 530 U.S. 133, 150-51 (2000).