District court decisions on excluding unqualified damages experts

Federal Rule of Evidence 702 provides that an expert witness may testify if he or she ” is qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education.” Under Daubert v. Merrell Dow and Rule 702, courts are charged with a gatekeeping role, the objective of which is to ensure that expert testimony admitted into evidence is …

Denial of permanent injunction vacated because willingness to license does not necessarily mean no irreparable harm – modified opinion –

Texas Advanced Optoelectronic v. Renesas was decided on July 9, 2018 on appeal from the Eastern District of Texas. The Federal Circuit granted petition for rehearing and reissued the opinion, modifying the opinion released on May 1, 2018. The principal change relates to the evidence relied on by Texas Advanced in its …

Entire market value rule inappropriate where accused product has valuable non-patented features

This opinion was superseded.    Power Integrations v. Fairchild Semiconductor was decided on July 3, 2018 on appeal from the Northern District of California. The asserted patents related to switching regulators involved in power supply controller chips. A jury found infringement and awarded $139.8 million in reasonable royalties to plaintiff Power Integration based on …

Lower court erred in considering pre-suit licensing rate in determining the ongoing royalty

XY v. Trans Ova Genetics was decided on May 23, 2018 on appeal from the District of Colorado. Plaintiff XY sued defendant Trans Ova for patent infringement and breach of contract. The jury found that Trans Ova breached the contract and willfully infringed XY’s patent, and awarded XY $4,585,000 for the …

Party waived right to challenge finding of no willfulness despite change in law

Ultratec v. Sorenson is a nonprecedential case decided on May 18, 2018 on appeal from the Western District of Wisconsin. The jury awarded plaintiff Ultratec a “total royalty payment of approximately $5,443,485.” The district court concluded on JMOL that there was no willfulness because plaintiff could not meet the objective prong of Seagate, …

Expert’s royalty methodology properly apportioned the value of nonpatented features and of standardization

Chrimar Holding v. ALE USA is a nonprecedential case decided on May 8, 2018 on appeal from the Eastern District of Texas. All four asserted patents were standard essential. Before trial the district court denied ALE’s motion to exclude the testimony of Chrimar’s damages expert regarding a reasonable royalty. A jury found …

Federal Circuit on Section 289 total profits for design patent infringement

This post deals with recovering total profits under 35 U.S.C. §289 for design patent infringement. Under Section 289, a design patent infringer is “liable to the owner to the extent of his total profit,” that is, all the profit made from the manufacture or sale “of the article of manufacture …

Denial of permanent injunction vacated because willingness to license does not necessarily mean no irreparable harm

This opinion was superseded.   Texas Advanced Optoelectronic v. Renesas was decided on May 1, 2018 on appeal from the Eastern District of Texas. Plaintiff Texas Advanced sued defendant Renesas for patent infringement, trade secret misappropriation, breach of contract, and tortious interference. Before trial, the district court granted Renesas’s summary judgment motion …

Jury royalty awarding plaintiff 71% of infringer’s per-unit profit is supported by the evidence

Exergen v. Kaz is a nonprecedential case decided on March 8, 2018 on appeal from the District of Massachusetts. Pre-trial, the district court granted defendant Kaz summary judgment of no willful infringement because its invalidity contentions were objectively reasonable. At trial, the jury found all asserted claims infringed and not invalid, …

What We Learned About Patent Remedies In 2017

2017 was a busy year for patent remedies. Except for the Supreme Court decision on laches, most of the action happened in the Federal Circuit. The graph below shows how many times each decision has been cited by another court. It’s updated as to January 26, 2018.   1. Laches …