Bosch sued Pylon for patent infringement of various patents that cover a "beam-type" windshield wiper. Robert Bosch LLC v. Pylon Mfg. Corp., No. 08-cv-542 (D. Del.). A jury determined that Bosch's patents were valid and infringed. Bosch then sought a permanent injunction that the judge denied on the grounds that Bosch failed to show that it would suffer irreparable harm. In reaching its decision the court noted the difficulty courts face in "struggling to balance the absence of a presumption of irreparable harm with a patentee's right to exclude" and that courts "frequently focus[] upon the nature of the competition between plaintiff and defendant in the relevant market in the context of evaluating irreparable harm and the adequacy of money damages." Robert Bosch LLC v. Pylon Mfg. Corp., 748 F. Supp. 2d 383, 407 (D. Del. 2010).
The Bosch district court focused on the nature of competition between Bosch and Pylon and identified various perceived deficiencies in Bosch's arguments. Specifically, it concluded: (1) that Bosch "fail[ed] to define a relevant market"; (2) the "existence of...
