Federal Circuit gives guidance on “connected to” not necessarily requiring separate structures; generic irreparable harm; DOE; admissible willfulness evidence

Context: In January 2023, Wonderland Switzerland obtained a largely favorable jury verdict against Evenflo, a rival maker of child car seats, in the District of Delaware over two patents (PDF). Subsequently, Judge John P. McCalla (whose home court is the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee, but who has helped out the United States Court for the District of Delaware in many patent cases) entered final judgment based on those liability findings as he denied judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) or a retrial, and entered a permanent injunction (PDF). An amended judgment, which was merely consistent with the verdict, came down in July 2023 (PDF).

What’s new: Yesterday (December 17, 2025), the United States Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit rendered its opinion (PDF) on both parties’ appeals. With the sole exception of an evidentiary issue relating to willfulness, the three-judge panel decided unanimously. The Federal Circuit has lifted the injunction, decided that one of the patents-in-suit was not infringed by one set of accused products under the Doctrine of Equivalents (DOE), and granted a retrial regarding the allegedly willful infringement of one of the patents (the jury did not consider it willful).

Direct impact:

• The jury had set per-patent per-unit rates, without distinguishing between the two product groups. The per-unit amount for the patent that one product group is no longer deemed to infringe, but with respect to which the patentee now has the chance to obtain willfulness enhancements, was $4, while for the other patent is was only $0.50.
• At the retrial, the patentee will be allowed to present to the jury an email thread where employees of the defendant discussed one of the patents in connection with a product not at issue in this case, and where one of them was looking for a way to work around it “ingeniously.”

Wider ramifications:

• This is an extremely instructive Federal Circuit ruling. Below we will discuss, in separate sections, the key holdings and what they mean for other cases.
• The extremely high bar for injunctive relief even between direct competitors is a characteristic of U.S. patent case law that leads injunction-focused patentees to prefer other jurisdictions.
• Wonderland Switzerland’s patent assertion campaign against Evenflo consists of three cases. Prior to the one that gave rise to yesterday’s Federal Circuit decision, there was a one filed in 2018 over three other patents and targeting other Evenflo products. As a follow-up to that one, Wonderland Switzerland yesterday brought its third case against Evenflo, again in the District of Delare, again over the patents asserted in 2018, now arguing that there has been continued infringement and, on that basis, seeking triple damages. Quite apparently, Wonderland Switzerland had prepared that complaint before, but wanted to see yesterday’s Federal Circuit decision.