(Originally published by Bloomberg Law on July 17, 2025.)

WilmerHale’s William Lee and Stanford Law School’s Mark Lemley say the reversal of a $20 million patent judgment against Google should encourage other courts to verify that damages are grounded in patents’ actual values.

Patents are a mutually beneficial agreement between inventors and the government. Each side makes concessions in service of their own, and the greater, good. It’s a careful balance, where policy and rules that are too permissive or too restrictive of inventors’ rights reduce the societal value of patents.

For years, this balance has been broken due to a judicial backslide that has allowed patent infringement damages awards to far exceed inventions’ true values. But in May, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit took an important initial step toward recalibration.

Continue reading the opinion here.