RJLF Lawyers Analyze the Rise and Fall of Post-Halo Damages in Law360
Drawing on a comprehensive analysis of 150 district court decisions, RJLF attorneys Connor Houghton, Savannah Carnes and Natalie Griffin authored a Law360 article exploring how courts have applied enhanced patent damages in the decade since the Supreme Court's landmark patent decision in Halo Electronics, Inc. v. Pulse Electronics, Inc. decision—and why the results differ from what many practitioners expected.
When the Supreme Court decided Halo in 2016, many believed the ruling would usher in a new era of enhanced damages awards in patent litigation. By replacing the Federal Circuit's rigid Seagate framework with a more flexible, discretionary standard, the decision was widely expected to make enhanced damages easier to obtain.
A decade later, however, the data tells a different story.
In their article, "10 Years, 150 Cases: The Rise and Fall of Post-Halo Damages," Connor, Savannah and Natalie analyzed 150 district court decisions issued between June 2016 and June 2026 addressing motions for enhanced damages under 35 U.S.C. § 284. Their findings reveal that while enhancement awards initially increased after Halo, courts have become increasingly reluctant to award them.
As the authors explain, "the bump gave way to restraint, and the restraint has only deepened as the decade wore on." According to their research, enhanced damages are now both less common and less severe than during the years immediately following the Supreme Court's decision.
Among the article's key findings:
Courts granted enhanced damages in only 42.7% of cases over the 10-year period studied.
Grant rates fell from 53.8% in the first three years after Halo to just 20% between 2024 and 2026.
Outcomes varied dramatically by jurisdiction, with grant rates ranging from approximately 14% to 80% among districts with meaningful sample sizes.
Every enhancement award in the dataset was tied to a finding of willful infringement, leading the authors to conclude that "willfulness is functionally a requirement for enhancement."
Even when courts do enhance damages, they are increasingly awarding lower multipliers than in the years immediately following Halo.
The authors also found that enhanced damages are heavily influenced by venue and judicial discretion. As they note, "no cut of the data produces sharper contrasts than geography," highlighting substantial differences in outcomes from one district to another.
Perhaps most notably, the study challenges the conventional wisdom that Halo permanently expanded the availability of enhanced damages. Instead, the authors conclude: "A decade later, Halo's legacy is not the patent owner windfall the 2016 commentary forecasted. District courts have used the discretionary standard with growing restraint as the decade wore on, both in the frequency and amount of enhancement."
Read the full article here. (Law360 subscription required for access.)