Hylton on Patent Infringement Damages

Keith Hylton has posted to SSRN Enhanced Damages for Patent Infringement:  A Normative Approach.  The abstract provides:

In Halo Electronics v. Pulse Electronics the Supreme Court granted greater discretion to lower courts to enhance damages for patent infringement. This paper takes a normative approach to patent infringement damages. Its underlying premise is that the goal of a damages regime should be to maximize society’s welfare. Patent damages should therefore balance society’s interest in encouraging innovation against the need to regulate infringement incentives. Although the analysis here is mostly normative and draws heavily on the economic theory of penalties, the aim of this paper is to provide a set of practical guidelines courts can follow in explaining, justifying, and developing rules to structure the discretion that Halo has returned to them.