Opinion of the Court
the discovery rule. Rather, she sued only for infringements that occurred in the three years before her suit. The defendant argued that she could not recover for even that much under the doctrine of laches, which protects against unreasonable delay in filing suit. We rejected that doctrine’s application, explaining that the Act’s limitations provision already “takes account of delay” by—here is the language again—allowing the plaintiff “to gain retrospective relief running only three years back from” her suit’s filing. Id., at 672, 677. But we did not go beyond the case’s facts to say that even if the limitations provision allows a claim for an earlier infringement, the plaintiff may not obtain monetary relief. To the contrary: The plaintiff in Petrella could get damages “running only three years back” from filing because she could sue for infringements occurring only within that timeframe.
Nealy is in a different situation. He has invoked the discovery rule to bring claims for infringing acts occurring more than three years before he filed suit. And as we have explained, we took this case on the assumption that such claims may be timely under the Act’s limitations provision. See supra, at 4. If Nealy’s claims are thus timely, he may obtain damages for them. The Copyright Act contains no separate time-based limit on monetary recovery.
Accordingly, we affirm the judgment below.
