The U.S. Supreme Court Overturns the Festo Decision

On May 28, 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered its opinion in Festo Corp. v. Shoketsu Kinzoku Kogyo Kabushiki Co., Ltd., No. 00-1543 (U.S. May 28, 2002), a long-awaited decision in the patent community. The Supreme Court’s decision reaffirmed the role of prosecution history estoppel as a limitation on the doctrine of equivalents, and revitalized the doctrine as a basis for proving patent infringement. The decision also reversed the retroactive effect of the Federal Circuit’s 2000 decision, which many believed to have reduced the value of over a million issued patents.

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