This chapter discusses the account of profits, disgorgement, and other forms of gain-based relief. It will consider the difference between compensation, restitution and disgorgement. It will then consider the account of profits, and the operation of bars to relief and other limiting factors.

The primary rationales of the account of profits have been identified as deterrence and prophylaxis (that is, preventing a defendant from gaining from wrongdoing). Deterrence looks not to the dispute in question, but to the future conduct of the specific defendant (specific deterrence) and the future conduct of other potential defendants (general deterrence). By stripping the defendant of her gain (or part of her gain), the defendant (and other potential defendants) will be deterred from engaging in similar conduct in the future. It is argued that the remedies discussed in this chapter have a deterrent flavour.

The law of civil remedies has frequently been described as a ‘capstone’ private law subject. In other words, it is the culmination of a student’s knowledge of private law, and it is intended to assist all the disparate strands from previously studied private law subjects to come together.

It is for this reason that we will take a generally ‘functional’ approach to the organisation of this book, grouping remedies from across different areas according to the broad functions they perform so that parallels and contrasts can be made.

Unjust enrichment is a plausible cause of action for individuals whose data has been collected and used without their consent, to train, develop, or improve AI systems, or which has been sold for such purposes. Disgorgement of profits may be possible in some situations where the defendant has unlawfully collected or used personal data. Gain-based remedies have a number of advantages in this context, including the fact that it may be relatively easy to ascertain the gain, but demonstrating the loss will be considerably harder. However, contractual pre-emption may limit the utility of claims for unjust enrichment.

This chapter deals with accounts of profits and other forms of gain-based relief. The rationale for accounts of profit have been said to be deterrence and prophylaxis.

The placement of reasonable fee awards in this chapter may be regarded as controversial. ‘Reasonable fee’ refers to a court-ordered monetary award reflecting what the plaintiff would have asked for to permit the defendant’s wrongdoing. They are generally awarded for intellectual property breaches, proprietary torts and breaches of negative covenants. The rationale for these awards is unclear, but Barnett and Harder have argued such awards are gain-based, so we place them in this chapter.

This chapter addresses two types of monetary remedies for patent infringement: (1) recovery of the patentee’s lost profits and (2) disgorgement of the infringer’s profits.  Both remedies make a comparison between what actually happened and a hypothetical “but for” world in which no infringement occurred. But the two remedies have substantially different objectives:  Lost profits are intended to compensate the patentee by restoring it to the position it would have occupied absent infringement, while disgorgement may serve other purposes, including deterrence, recapturing wrongful gains, and encouraging ex ante licensing of patented technology. Section 1 addresses several key issues regarding lost profits awards, including the availability and standard of proof, the role of noninfringing alternatives, potential recovery for the sale of related but unpatented goods, whether and how to apportion lost profits awards for complex products, and potential recovery for other infringement-related harms.  Section 2 describes the justifications for, and availability of, the disgorgement (accounting) remedy in major patent systems and, additionally, analyzes a number of questions related to calculating such awards. In both sections, recommendations are made and areas for further research are identified.