Misuse is an increasingly important topic because of the central role intellectual property plays in our economy. The consequences of a misuse finding are severe: unenforceability of the patent or copyright involved, and defense to a suit to recover royalties in a license. The defense continues to arise in patent cases, has led to the dismissal of several recent copyright cases, and is now being asserted in trademark cases. The misuse defense thus represents a nexus of intellectual property and antitrust law and has the potential to affect business practices involving computer copyrights and other areas highly relevant in today's economic environment. This timely handbook covers the origin and development of the misuse doctrine, the debate about its scope and existence in relation to antitrust law, and its present status in patent, copyright, and trademark law. It also gives practical insights into how the doctrine affects both licensing and litigation practice.

Through a collaboration among twenty legal scholars from North America, Europe and Asia, this book presents an international consensus on the use of patent remedies for complex products such as smartphones, computer networks, and the Internet of Things. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

This book explores the 'clean hands' doctrine, a safety valve in the legal system designed to correct injustice.

The fusion of law and equity in common law systems was a crucial moment in the development of the modern law. In this volume leading scholars assess the significance of the fusion of law and equity from comparative, doctrinal, historical and theoretical perspectives.

One of the long-standing maxims of equity is that “he who comes into equity must come with clean hands.” It is closely related to the maxim that “he who seeks equity must do equity.” These equitable principles are “an historical reflection of the fact that courts of equity began as courts of conscience.” In this country and throughout the common law world, unclean hands has tradition- ally been a defense to equitable claims, but not to legal claims.Yet in the case below the Federal Circuit applied the equitable defense of unclean hands to a legal claim for damages for patent infringement. The Federal Circuit repeatedly relied on precedents of this Court that characterize unclean hands as an equitable defense that constrains a court of equity. The Federal Circuit provided no support whatsoever for applying the equitable defense of unclean hands to a legal claim for damages, especially when that equitable defense would displace the verdict of a jury.