In another in the spate of IP rulings by the US Supreme Court in June, the Court clarified that “deliberate indifference” to a known risk that one’s actions may lead to another’s infringement of a patent may not subject one to liability for inducement to infringe. However, acting with “willful blindness” to obvious facts indicating that such will occur would.
In Global Tech Appliances v. SEB, the Supreme Court clarified the often misunderstood standards for determining liability for inducement. An overseas defendant had purchased and copied virtually all features of a deep fryer which was protected by a US patent (although not marked as such, since it was an overseas product), then resold them into the United States. The Court upheld lower court rulings of liability, because defendant had copied the overseas model, failed to tell its attorney that fact while yet seeking a written opinion of its right to sell the product into the United States, and thus “took deliberate steps to avoid knowing” that the product was protected by a US patent.
To be liable for inducement of others to infringe patents, therefore, (1) the defendant must subjectively believe that there is a high probability that a fact exists indicating liability and (2) take deliberate steps to avoid learning that fact.