In the first of two widely–anticipated patent decisions, the Supreme Court today issued an opinion in Global–Tech v. S.E.B. The issue facing the Court was what an accused infringer needs to know to be liable for inducing someone else to engage in patent infringement on its behalf. Writing for an eight–justice majority, Justice Alito supplied the answer. First, the Court explained what an accused infringer needs to know to engage in an act of induced infringement—namely, that the act it is inducing infringes a patent. The accused infringer must know not just what act it is inducing, but also that such an act infringes a patent.

Second, Justice Alito turned to the question whether the knowledge requirement can be satisfied by an accused infringer’s “willful blindness” to the truth. The Court’s answer was, yes, but under a stricter two–part test than that applied by the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. To satisfy the “knowledge” requirement, a plaintiff will have to prove (among other things) that an accused infringer either actually knew of the patent, or (1) subjectively believed that there was a high probability that it was encouraging patent infringement; and (2) took “deliberate actions” not to learn whether it was encouraging patent infringement. While the Court found that the Federal Circuit had wrongly applied a weaker test, the Court also concluded that the plaintiff below had proved willful blindness under the new stronger test as well.

Alone in dissent, Justice Kennedy would have held that “knowledge” is knowledge, and that willful blindness is something short of knowledge, and so does not satisfy the statutory requirement.

With this result, patent litigants now know better than they did what it takes to plead and prove that a defendant induced a third party to do its infringing for it.