• Intellectual Property Rights

United States Court of appeals for the federal circuit

Global-Tech Appliances, Inc., etal. Vs. SEB S.A. (Decided on 31.05.2011)

Intellectual property rights - Patent - Induced infringement - 35 U. S. C. §271(b) - Petitioner has asked 'X' a Hong Kong home appliance ,wholly owned subsidiary of petitioner, maker to supply it with deep fryers meeting certain specifications - Home appliance maker 'X' has purchased a patented product of the Appellant, copied all but the product's cosmetic features and retained an attorney to conduct a right-to-use study without telling him it had copied directly from Respondent's design - Attorney had issued an opinion letter stating that impugned product did not infringe any of the patents that he had found - Respondent sued 'X', asserting that it had contravened 35 U. S. C. §271(b) by actively inducing petitioner to sell or offer to sell impugned goods in violation of its patent rights - Whether home appliance maker 'X' can be held liable for the Induced infringement

Held, Induced infringement under §271(b) requires knowledge that the induced acts constitute patent infringement - In referring to a party that "induces infringement," the provision may require merely that the inducer must lead another to engage in conduct that happens to amount to infringement - There is no reason why the doctrine of willful blindness should not apply in civil lawsuits for induced patent infringement under §271(b). - Even more telling is 'X's decision not to inform its attorney that the product to be evaluated was simply a knockoff of Respondent's product- Taken together, the evidence was more than sufficient for a jury to find that 'x' subjectively believed there was a high probability that Respondent's product was patented and took deliberate steps to avoid knowing that fact, and that it therefore willfully blinded itself to the infringing nature of its purchaser's sales - Judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is affirmed - Appeal dismissed

• Criminal

The Supreme Court of UK

Shepherd Masimba Kambadzi Vs. Secretary of State for the Home Department (Decided on 25.05.2011)

Criminal - Schedule 3 to the Immigration Act 1971 (the 1971 Act) - Failure to comply with a procedural requirement in its policy relating to the detention of foreign national prisoners - Appellant, a Zimbabwean national detained under the power to detain foreign nationals in contravention of the policy providing for detention to be subject to "review at regular intervals" - Whether a failure by the Respondent to comply with a procedural requirement in its policy relating to the detention of foreign national prisoners results in their detention being unlawful, so as to allow the detainee to advance a claim in tort for false imprisonment

Held, Secretary of State was under a public law duty to adhere to the terms of the policy relating to reviews unless there were good reasons not to - Unlawful failure to review the Appellant's detention, as required by the policy, resulted in his detention being unlawful - Public law error bore directly on the decision to detain the Appellant and therefore satisfied the test for determining when a public law error will result in detention being unlawful - Appellant's detention was unlawful.