Abstract

     The Declaratory Judgment Act is a procedural device that was enacted in order to define the rights and legal relations of adverse parties. The declaratory judgment procedural device has been used by purported patent infringers as a sword to adjudicate the validity of the patents that they are allegedly infringing. Recent decisions in such cases as SanDisk v. STMicroelectronics, and MedImmune, Inc. v. Genentech, Inc., have given practitioners in patent law further insight into the standards that federal courts will use in granting a declaratory judgment on the validity of a patent in an infringement case. This note provides a brief overview of the declaratory judgment device, its development, and application in hallmark patent cases.