Advertisement When Cease-and-Desist Letters Create a Risk of a Declaratory Judgment Backlash: Observations from Trimble Inc. v. PerDiemCo LLC Thursday, May 20, 2021 With its recent decision in Trimble Inc. v. PerDiemCo LLC, the Federal Circuit has opened the door for declaratory judgment actions a bit wider. The Court reversed the Northern District of California’s dismissal of a patent declaratory relief action based on lack of personal jurisdiction, and limited the scope previously articulated by its 1998 decision in Red Wing Shoe Co. v. Hockerson-Halberstadt, Inc., which afforded a patentee “latitude when informing others of its patent rights without subjecting itself to jurisdiction in a forum in a foreign state.” In doing so, the Federal Circuit moved away from “special” patent-specific rules and reemphasized the Supreme Court’s general focus in exercising specific personal jurisdiction, in particular, whether the nature and extent of a patent asserter’s relationship to the forum State is sufficient to establish minimum contacts with the forum State (