Global-Tech Appliances, Inc. v. SEB S.A.

Global-Tech Appliances, Inc. v. SEB S.A.
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued February 23, 2011 Decided May 31, 2011
Full case name	Global-Tech Appliances, Inc., et al., Petitioners v. SEB S.A.
Docket no.	10-6
Citations	563 U.S. 754 (more) 131 S. Ct. 2060; 179 L. Ed. 2d 1167; 2011 U.S. LEXIS 4022; 79 U.S.L.W. 4400; 98 U.S.P.Q.2d 1665
Case history
Prior	SEB SA v. Montgomery Ward & Co., Inc., 594 F.3d 1360 (Fed. Cir. 2010); cert. granted, 562 U.S. 960 (2010).
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy Clarence Thomas · Ruth Bader Ginsburg Stephen Breyer · Samuel Alito Sonia Sotomayor · Elena Kagan
Case opinions
Majority	Alito, joined by Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan
Dissent	Kennedy
Laws applied
35 U.S.C. § 271(b)

Global-Tech Appliances, Inc. v. SEB S.A., 563 U.S. 754 (2011), is a United States Supreme Court case.^[1] The case considered whether a party, in order to "actively [induce] infringement of a patent" under 35 U.S.C. § 271(b),^[2] must know that the induced act constitutes patent infringement, or whether deliberate indifference to the existence of a patent can be considered a form of actual knowledge. In an 8–1 decision delivered by Justice Samuel Alito, the Court held that induced infringement requires knowledge of patent infringement, but because the petitioners had knowledge of a patent infringement lawsuit involving the respondent and Sunbeam Products over the same invention, the Federal Circuit's judgement that petitioners induced infringement must be affirmed under the doctrine of willful blindness.^[1]

Justice Anthony Kennedy filed a dissenting opinion.^[3]