IP News

On Oct. 13, 2011, the Federal Circuit issued its opinion in Robert Bosch LLC v. Pylon Manufacturing Corp., Case No. 2011-1096. In the underlying lawsuit concerning wiper blade technology, a jury found that Pylon infringed several valid claims of the Bosch patents-in-suit. Despite the jury's infringement finding, the district court denied Bosch's motion for a permanent injunction against Pylon, a Bosch competitor in the wiper blade market, concluding that Bosch failed to show it would suffer irreparable harm if Pylon was not enjoined. Slip Op. at 4.

On appeal, the Federal Circuit reversed, holding that the district court “made a clear error in judgment in its analysis of the irreparable harm factor.” Id. at 13. The district court erred by denying the injunction based on the fact that there were more than two competitors in the relevant market and that windshield wipers are a non-core business for Bosch. The Federal Circuit found that even though there were multiple competitors in the market, Bosch provided overwhelming evidence that parties were in direct competition with one another, that Bosch had lost market share as a result of such competition, and that Pylon lacked the ability to satisfy a large money judgment. Id. at 13-14.