The Personal Liability of Corporate Officers for Patent Infringement

In this manuscript, I criticize the Federal Circuit's current standard for evaluating the individual liability of corporate officers for the patent infringement of their corporations as being based incorrectly upon a piercing of the corporate veil (a doctrine applicable only to corporate shareholders, not to officers). In adopting this piercing standard, the Federal Circuit has inadvertently and radically expanded the scope of individual officer liability and has exposed corporate officers to a form of strict liability for their corporation's infringing activities. I propose instead a standard that parallels the "personal participation" standard of traditional corporate doctrine, which would ensure that culpable corporate actors are held liable in appropriate circumstances, but would avoid wholesale imposition of personal liability upon officers for the patent infringement of their corporations