Posts Tagged: "patent damages"

In January 2013, Taiwan’s InnoLux Corp. filed an appeal with the Federal Circuit, requesting the Court to overturn an award of enhanced post-judgment (“ongoing”) royalties that appeared to be enhanced, at least in part, because the trial judge took offense at an out-of-court remark made by the defendant’s CEO, after losing at trial. Following the verdict, the defendant’s CEO was quoted in a Taiwan newspaper as having said, “The issue of patent infringement is being taken too seriously sometimes.”

The relative paucity of design patent jurisprudence regarding the legal remedy of damages and the equitable remedy of an accounting for the infringer’s profits, makes clear that while an award of damages for patent infringement may be enhanced under 35 U.S.C. § 284 for willful infringement, and award of profits under 35 U.S.C. § 289, may not be enhanced under Section 284. While this distinction may appear important to one who wishes to obtain an enhancement of the damages award for willful infringement, the jury verdict form in Apple v. Samsung leaves one clueless as to whether the monetary award for infringement of 18 Samsung devices was an award of damages, an award of profits, or some combination of the two.

How anyone with even the most fundamental understand of property rights and economics could say that infringing a patent does not result in a tangible injury is beyond me. Is he unfamiliar with the concept and real world practice of licensing patents? With all due respect to Judge Posner, a right without the ability to obtain recourse for its trampling is no right at all. His analysis is wrong and frankly rather amateurish. It carries the stench of a anti-patent ideologue who doesn’t understand the most fundamental principles associated with legitimate, arms-length negotiations that result in a transfer of rights. Judge Posner’s damage analysis has to be a dream come true for those who use the bullying tactic of efficient infringement to make the business decision to trample rights rather than legitimately acquire them.

While the Federal Circuit ruled that Microsoft did infringe and the patent claim in question (claim 19 of U.S. Patent No. 5,490,216) was valid, it was Microsoft who was the big winner here. The damages awarded by the jury to Uniloc were $388 million, which was set aside by the district court, a ruling that the Federal Circuit affirmed. The Federal Circuit also agreed there was no willful infringement. So while Uniloc has won at least something from Microsoft as a result of its infringement of a valid patent claim, it seems like it will be far less than the $388 million, particularly given the Federal Circuit threw out the 25 percent rule and said the entire market value rule was not applicable in this case.

Earlier today the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari in Microsoft Corporation v. i4i Limited Partnership, with Chief Justice John Roberts taking no part in the decision or petition. This comes only days after the United States Patent and Trademark Office refused to grant reexamination of the patent in question. Given Microsoft doesn’t even have strong enough prior art to provoke a reexamination by the USPTO it seems absurd to think they could have been victorious even if the district court reviewed the patent claims de novo and without any presumption.

the patented technology involved screen recognition and terminal emulation processes to download a screen of information from a remote mainframe computer onto a local personal computer (PC). Basically, the patented technology facilitated the ability of the PC to operate like earlier “dumb terminals” in recognizing information sent by a mainframe connected to the PC. The alleged infringing terminal emulator program called “NewLook” was developed in Australia (by Looksoftware Proprietary Limited) but was sold by Lansa, Inc. (Lansa) in the U.S.

Microsoft has lived a charmed life in the “mega award” world of patent infringement litigation.  For example, Microsoft recently dodged a $357 million jury award bullet in Lucent Technologies, Inc. v. Gateway, Inc. But it now looks like Microsoft’s luck finally ran out.  In i4i Limited Partnership v. Microsoft Corp., Microsoft was tagged with:  (1) a jury award of $200…

The appeal in Lucent Technologies, Inc. v. Gateway, Inc. from the Southern District of California was considered in many quarters as the potentially seminal case on how to calculate damages based on a reasonable royalty using the Georgia-Pacific factors, especially the “entire market value” rule (aka factor 13). That Microsoft and others were currently on the hook to Lucent Technologies…

Mike Drummond, the Editor-in-Chief of Inventors Digest Magazine and a decorated journalist, has just  joined the Board of Directors of American Innovators for Patent Reform (AIPR).  AIPR, headquartered in New York, represents a broad constituency of American innovators and innovation stakeholders, including inventors, engineers, researchers, entrepreneurs, patent owners, investors, small businesses, and intellectual property professionals such as patent attorneys, patent…

Yesterday, Leonard Davis, a United States District Court Judge in the Eastern District of Texas, ordered Microsoft Corporation to stop selling Word, an order that becomes effective in 59 days (i.e., 60 days from yesterday).  The permanent injunction issued after the conclusion of a patent infringement lawsuit brought by i4i Limited Partnership, a litigation where Microsoft was found to infringe…

Once upon a time I used to not get worked up at all about proposals for patent reform, because after all they almost always didn’t seem to go through, or even if they did what was passed was hardly what was suggested. Then, my good friend John White told me several years ago that this time patent reform was going to…

As I sit here listening to the Executive Meeting of the Judiciary Committee on patent reform, things are getting extremely contentious.  Senator Specter (R-PA) has said that he would rather wait and not vote this bill out of Committee until Senator Kyl (R-AZ) has an opportunity to submit his amendments relative to the post-grant review process.  Apparently Senator Kyl has…

The Senate Judiciary Committee did hold a meeting this morning discussing several appointments pending before the Committee and pending patent reform legislation.  The meeting was quite brief, lasting less than 30 minutes, presumably because there is an important mark-up meeting regarding the Budget.  According to Senator Leahy, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senators will once again meet regarding patent reform on…

Patent reform will once again take center stage this week when Senators on the Judiciary Committee discuss the Leahy-Hatch patent bill in an Executive Business Meeting scheduled for Thursday, March 26, 2009, at 10:00 a.m., in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room 226. With patent reform in the air and seemingly rushing through the Congress, it was believed that the…

According to Reuters, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) says that the House and Senate are close to agreeing on language for a patent reform bill that would virtually ensure its passage. According to Hatch, patent reform will happen this year, saying that he would be shocked if patent reform was not enacted in 2009. Hatch says “[th]is is the closest we’ve…