Cite as: 508 U. S. 83 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
vacated unless the parties' dispute extends beyond the terms of the patentee's charge of infringement.16
While both of our earlier cases are consistent with the Federal Circuit practice established in Vieau and Fonar, neither one required it. Electrical Fittings did not involve a declaratory judgment, and Altvater does not necessarily answer the question whether, in the absence of an ongoing dispute between the parties over infringement, an adjudication of invalidity would be moot. We now turn to that question.
III
Under its current practice, the Federal Circuit uniformly declares that the issue of patent validity is "moot" if it affirms the District Court's finding of noninfringement and if, as in the usual case, the dispute between the parties does not extend beyond the patentee's particular claim of infringement. That practice, and the issue before us, therefore concern the jurisdiction of an intermediate appellate court—not the jurisdiction of either a trial court or this Court. In the trial court, of course, a party seeking a declaratory judgment has the burden of establishing the existence of an actual case or controversy. Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Haworth, 300 U. S. 227, 240-241 (1937).17
In patent litigation, a party may satisfy that burden, and seek a declaratory judgment, even if the patentee has not filed an infringement action. Judge Markey has described
"the sad and saddening scenario that led to enactment of the Declaratory Judgment Act (Act), 28 U. S. C. § 2201. In the patent version of that scenario, a patent owner engages in a danse macabre, brandishing a Dam-16 See Vieau, 823 F. 2d, at 1518-1521 (Bennett, J., concurring); Fonar, 821 F. 2d, at 634, and n. 2.
17 As we have noted, the Declaratory Judgment Act affords the district court some discretion in determining whether or not to exercise that jurisdiction, even when it has been established. See Brillhart v. Excess Ins. Co. of America, 316 U. S. 491, 494-496 (1942).
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