美國專利永久禁制令被放寬：Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (Fed. Cir., September 17, 2015)

Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (Fed. Cir., September 17, 2015)

Appeals court grants injunction to Apple, bans some features from Samsung phones (ArsTechnica, September 18, 2015)


美國聯邦巡迴上訴法院於上週四就Apple對Samsung產品聲請永久禁制令一案作出判決，駁回地院拒絕頒發禁制令的裁定。

這個判決非常重要。在2006年以前，美國專利權人勝訴之後，聲請永久禁制令難度不高。但美國聯邦最高法院2006年在eBay案中，作出專利訴訟的永久禁制令須審酌與暫時禁制令相似的四個要件之後，專利權人聲請永久禁制令的難度大幅提高。這四個要件如下：

(1) that it has suffered an irreparable injury;
(2) that remedies available at law are inadequate to compensate for that injury;
(3) that considering the balance of hardships between the plaintiff and defendant, a remedy in equity is warranted; and
(4) that the public interest would not be disserved by a permanent injunction. 

聯邦巡迴上訴法院上週四的這個判決，解釋了eBay案中 "irreparable injury" 這個要件與永久禁制令之間的關聯性。這個關聯性被放的很寬，只要求專利特徵與侵權產品的需求之間，有 "some connection" 即可，不要求專利特徵是原告所失去的市場銷售額的 "唯一" 理由。

這個解釋主要基於兩個理由。首先，現在的產品多半功能複雜，可能包括了成千上百的技術特徵。因此要求原告舉證這上千個特徵中的其中一個侵權特徵，是造成銷售損失的唯一理由，這是不合理的。此外，專利權本質上是排它權，如果專利權人都已經勝訴了，卻仍無法對其競爭者聲請禁制令，與專利制度的本質不符，也與聯邦最高法院在eBay案中的見解不符。

這個判決文的重點，在第10頁到第12頁。茲節錄原文如下：

When a patentee alleges it suffered irreparable harm stemming from lost sales solely due to a competitor’s infringement, a finding that the competitor’s infringing features drive consumer demand for its products satisfies the causal nexus inquiry. In that case, the entirety of the patentee’s alleged harm weighs in favor of injunctive relief. Such a showing may, however, be nearly impossible from an evidentiary standpoint when the accused devices have thousands of features, and thus thousands of other potential causes that must be ruled out. Nor does the causal nexus requirement demand such a showing. Instead, it is a flexible analysis, as befits the discretionary nature of the four-factor test for injunctive relief. We have explained that proving a causal nexus requires the patentee to show “some connection” between the patented features and the demand for the infringing products.  Apple III, 735 F.3d at 1364.1 Thus, in a case involving phones with hundreds of thousands of available features, it was legal error for the district court to effectively require Apple to prove that the infringement was the sole cause of the lost downstream sales. The district court should have determined whether the record established that a smartphone feature impacts customers’ purchasing decisions. Apple III, 735 F.3d at 1364. Though the fact that the infringing features are not the only cause of the lost sales may well lessen the weight of any alleged irreparable harm, it does not eliminate it entirely. To say otherwise would import a categorical rule into this analysis.

The right to exclude competitors from using one’s property rights is important. And the right to maintain exclusivity—a hallmark and crucial guarantee of patent rights deriving from the Constitution itself—is likewise important. “Exclusivity is closely related to the fundamental nature of patents as property rights.” Douglas Dynamics, 717 F.3d at 1345. And the need to protect this exclusivity would certainly be at its highest when the infringer is one’s fiercest competitor. Essentially barring entire industries of patentees—like Apple and other innovators of many-featured products—from taking
advantage of these fundamental rights is in direct contravention of the Supreme Court’s approach in eBay. 547 U.S. at 393 (“[E]xpansive principles suggesting that injunctive relief could not issue in a broad swath of cases . . . cannot be squared with the principles of equity adopted by Congress.”).

The district court thus erred when it required Apple to prove that the infringing features were the exclusive or predominant reason why consumers bought Samsung’s products to find irreparable harm.... 

這個判決使得專利權人往後聲請永久禁制令變的容易，肯定影響深遠，建議大家閱讀判決原文。更多的討論以及它會造成的影響，請參考Knowledge Repository。