Standing is a threshold requirement to bring a cause of action, and requires “two strands: Article III standing, which enforces the Constitution’s case-or- controversy requirement, and prudential standing, which embodies judicially self-imposed limits on the exercise of federal jurisdiction.” On March 25, 2014, however, the Supreme Court of the United States abrogated prudential standing for the foreseeable future in Lexmark International, Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc. The fallout of this hardly publicized, yet unanimous opinion is two-fold. First, federal courts will need to dissect and reconstruct their standing requirements. Second, plaintiffs who could have had their day in court in 2014 may have the court’s doors slammed in their face today. This Article focuses on the impact of the Supreme Court’s ruling in the patent field and demonstrates that the ruling reinforces a party’s right to access the courts in patent infringement suits.
Read the full Article here.