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*Complaints can also allege willful infringment of a patent/patents. If the plaintiff proves willful infringment then the court may award a larger amount of damages to the plaintiff. *The plaintiff chooses the District Court to file the complaint. Typically chooses a district where alleged infringement has occurred or infringing products have been distributed. *Factors that play into choosing venues include time in between filing of complaint and judgement rendered, "experience level of judges", procedural rules, and "sophistication of jury pool."
*Affirmative Defense: defendant claims the asserted patent is invalid or unenforceable or claims non-infringement. *Equitable Defense: may be included in defendant's answer. Examples are inequitable conduct or laches. Inequitable conduct alleges that the plaintiff has not been honest and forthcoming with the USPTO when applying for a patent. Laches protects the defendant from potential bias and paying damages to the plaintiff, if the plaintiff delayed filing the complaint for no apparent reason. *If the answer's claims of inequitable conduct are found to be valid, the asserted patent may be found unenforceable. The patentee may no longer be able to exclude others from using the patented idea and will not be awarded damages for use of the idea.
→Definition of Litigation Steps
==Definition of Litigation Steps==
: '''Complaint''': Document filed in a district court claiming patent infringement. The complaint identifies who has allegedly infringed the patent and how. Often very vague (hence the Innovation/Patent Act). Complaint will be served to the defendant after being filed. Defendant will then be summoned.
: Motion to Transfer: Defendant serves a motion to transfer if the district where the complaint was
filed is not the business's primary working location. Transferring locations enables defendants
Answer: Defendants file and serve an answer to the original complaint. The answer typically consists
of a response (denial/agreement) to each asserted claim of infringement in the complaint.
Counterclaims: asserted by the defendant. Claims that the asserted patent has not been infringed or the asserted
patent is invalid. Additionallyt, defendant may assert its own patent against the plaintiff in a counterclaim.
# Proof that the defendant has its own patents.
*Bifurcation Motion: separates issues in a case into different trials.
Appeals: If the losing party does not agree with the result of the trial, it may submit appeals to the US Federal Court of Appeals.
==Content==
[http://knobbe.com/pdf/2010-December-The-US-Patent-Litigation-Process.pdf]
