Supreme Court’s Medtronic v. Mirowski Decision

On January 22, 2014, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Medtronic v. Mirowski Family Ventures (decision available here). The Supreme Court held that, where a licensee asserts a declaratory judgment claim against a patent holder, it is the patent holder’s burden to prove infringement, in the process reversing the Federal Circuit’s ruling to the contrary. The Supreme Court noted that the patentee ordinarily bears the burden of proving infringement, that the operation of the declaratory judgment act is only procedural (leaving substantive rights unchanged), and the burden of proof is a substantive aspect of a claim.