Global-Tech Appliances, Inc., et al., Petitioners v. Seb S.A.
The Court held that inducing patent infringement requires knowledge of the infringement, but affirmed the Federal Circuit's judgment against the petitioners under the doctrine of willful blindness, given their knowledge of a related infringement lawsuit.· AI-written
563 U.S. 754 · No. 10-6 · 2010 term · Roberts Court
Decided May 31, 2011 · argued Feb 23, 2011
Economic activity · Patents and copyrights: patent
Majority opinion: Samuel Alito
The voteMajorityDissent
8–18 in the majority, 1 in dissent
1 dissent (8–1)
Affirmed. Global-Tech Appliances, Inc., et al., Petitioners lost.
What this ruling means
Affirmed: the Supreme Court upheld the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit, so it stands (sometimes with changes the Court made to it).
Global-Tech Appliances, Inc., et al., Petitioners was the petitioner, the side that asked the Supreme Court to review the case. “Lost” means the Court did not give that side the result it asked for.
From the Supreme Court Database. A justice who agreed with the result but not the reasoning counts in the majority.
Summary
The opening of the case’s Wikipedia article: what the case was about and what the Court held.
Global-Tech Appliances, Inc. v. SEB S.A., 563 U.S. 754 (2011), is a United States Supreme Court case. The case considered whether a party, in order to "actively [induce] infringement of a patent" under 35 U.S.C. § 271(b), must know that the induced act constitutes patent infringement, or whether deliberate indifference to the existence of a patent can be considered a form of actual knowledge. In an 8–1 decision delivered by Justice Samuel Alito, the Court held that induced infringement requires knowledge of patent infringement, but because the petitioners had knowledge of a patent infringement lawsuit involving the respondent and Sunbeam Products over the same invention, the Federal Circuit's judgement that petitioners induced infringement must be affirmed under the doctrine of willful blindness.
Justice Anthony Kennedy filed a dissenting opinion.
Data notes
The text is Wikipedia’s (CC BY-SA 4.0), matched to the case by its citation, docket number or name and year, and is not checked against the opinion. The site keeps the article’s opening section, ending on its last full sentence. The one-sentence summary under the title is the Decisions list’s: Wikipedia’s own ruling sentence, or, tagged “AI-written”, one Claude wrote from this opening.
How the justices voted
Each justice who took part, placed by their Martin–Quinn ideology score for the 2010 term. Filled: the 8 in the majority. Hollow: the 1 in dissent. Colour is the party of the president who appointed them.
Majority(8)
Samuel AlitoWrote the majority opinion
Ruth GinsburgJoined the majority
Sonia SotomayorJoined the majority
Elena KaganJoined the majority
Stephen BreyerJoined the majority
John RobertsJoined the majority
Antonin ScaliaJoined the majority
Clarence ThomasJoined the majority
Dissent(1)
Anthony KennedyWrote a dissent
Data notes
Each justice’s vote and what they wrote are from the justice-centered file of the Supreme Court Database. “Wrote a concurrence” means the justice sided with the majority and wrote separately; a justice who dissented in part is counted on the side they took overall. A justice who wrote nothing is listed as joining their side.
Positions are each justice’s Martin–Quinn score for the case’s term, the same scores as the Ideology page: negative is more liberal, positive more conservative. A score sums up a justice’s votes across the whole term, so it says where they usually sit, not why they voted as they did here. The median line is the Court’s median justice that term.
The parties
Who brought the case to the Court, who answered it, and how it got there.
- Petitioner
- Global-Tech Appliances, Inc., et al., PetitionersManufacturer
- Respondent
- Seb S.A.Inventor, patent assigner, trademark owner or holder
- Reached the Court by
- Certiorari (the Court chose to hear it)
Data notes
The names are the two sides of the case’s title. The description under each is the Supreme Court Database’s category for that party, in its own wording. The petitioner is the side that asked the Supreme Court to review the decision below. “Why it was taken” appears only when the majority opinion says lower courts disagreed or were unsure about the question; reasons that would fit any case (“to resolve the question presented”, “an important question”) are left out.
The law at issue
The law the Court was asked to apply, and the kind of power it used to decide.
- Provision
- 35-271
- Kind of law
- Infrequently litigated statutes
- Decided by
- Statutory construction
Data notes
The Supreme Court Database codes the main constitutional provision, statute or court rule each case turned on, and the basis of the decision: judicial review of a federal or state law, interpreting a statute, supervising the lower courts, and so on. A case can rest on more than one. “Overruled” counts only where the majority opinion says so.
Timeline
What happened at the Court and how the case got there, newest first.
- May 31, 2011DecidedDecided · Decided 8–1: affirmed. Global-Tech Appliances, Inc., et al., Petitioners lost.
- Feb 23, 2011ArguedArgued · Oral argument before the Court.
- Not datedTaken upTaken up · The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case (certiorari).
- Not datedCourt belowCourt below · Decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit: affirmed.
- Not datedBeganBegan · The case began in the New York Southern U.S. District Court.
Data notes
From the Supreme Court Database: the court the case began in, the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed and what that court did, how the case came to the Court, and the dates of argument and decision. The database does not date the steps in the lower courts. Court names are the database’s.
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Data notes
Every other orally argued case with a clear vote, from the 1946 term on, that the Supreme Court Database files under the same issue as this one. The database gives each case one issue from a list of about 270 (abortion, search and seizure of vehicles, the death penalty, and so on), whatever law it turned on.
Official record
Read the full opinion on Justia, the argument audio on Oyez and Wikipedia. Case data from the Supreme Court Database, Version 2026 Release 01, through the 2025 term.