Under Halo, Enhanced Damages Claim Does Not Require Request for Preliminary Injunction

The magistrate judge recommended denying defendant's motion to dismiss plaintiff's willful infringement claim for failure to state a claim and found that the Supreme Court's recent decision in Halo Elecs., Inc. v. Pulse Elecs., Inc., 136 S. Ct. 1923 (2016), did not require plaintiff to first seek a preliminary injunction. "While true that the '[In re Seagate Tech., LLC, 497 F.3d 1360 (Fed. Cir. 2007),] test' is distinct from Seagate's preliminary injunction requirement, the court finds in Halo a wholesale supplanting of the Federal Circuit's 'inelastic constraints' in favor of an approach that affords district courts the discretion to mete out damages as they see fit; with or without a plaintiff moving for a preliminary injunction. Indeed, if in the midst of its derogation of Seagate, the Court had intended for a significant aspect of that case to remain intact, it likely would have said so. Halo thus broadly rejects any formal restriction on a district court's discretion to award enhanced damages."

SimpliVity Corporation v. Springpath Inc., 4-15-cv-13345 (MAD July 15, 2016, Order) (Hennessy, M.J.)