In the old days, if you proved that a defendant infringed your patent, you were nearly always entitled to an injunction prohibiting the defendant from continuing to infringe.
According to the Federal Circuit, “[b]ecause the ‘right to exclude recognized in a patent is but the essence of the concept of property,’ the general rule is that a permanent injunction will issue once infringement and validity have been adjudged.” MercExchange, LLC v. eBay, Inc., 401 F.3d 1323, 1338 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (quoting Richardson v. Suzuki Motor Co., 868 F.2d 1226, 1246-47 (Fed. Cir. 1989)); see also 35 U.S.C. § 261 (“Subject to the provisions of this title, patents shall have the attributes of personal property.”); 35 U.S.C. § 154(a)(1) (“Every patent shall * * * grant to the patentee, his heirs or assigns, [] the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention throughout the United States or importing the invention into the United States, and, if the invention is a process, of the right to exclude others from using, offering for sale or selling throughout the United States, or importing into the United States, products made by that process[.]”); 35 U.S.C. § 283 (“The several courts having jurisdiction of cases under this title may grant injunctions in accordance with the principles of equity to prevent the violation of any right secured by patent, on such terms as the court deems reasonable.”).
The “general rule” of a patent holder being entitled to an injunction once infringement had been established went out the window with the Supreme Court’s 2006 decision in eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C., 547 U.S. 388 (2006). eBay held that a patent holder seeking an injunction “must demonstrate: (1) that it has suffered an irreparable injury; (2) that remedies available at law, such as monetary damages, 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.” Id. at 391.
This is a relatively high standard to meet, especially for entities that own patents but do not practice them, and, in eBay’s wake, courts increasingly deny requests for permanent injunctions.