Posts Tagged: "willful patent infringement"

“While the jury’s $130 million verdict is significant and may sound large in the abstract, it may not be enough without enhancement to deter infringing conduct given the context of this case,” Judge Olguin wrote. Evidence presented at trial shows that the infringing products sold by Cochlear generated $1.8 billion in revenues. Cochlear had publicly stated in a 2016 annual report that the jury’s verdict won’t disrupt Cochlear’s business or U.S. customers.

Portal Communications filed a suit for patent infringement against Cupertino, CA-based consumer tech giant Apple Inc. At issue in the case, which was filed in the Eastern District of Texas, are a series of patents covering natural language voice query technologies which are allegedly in use by Apple’s Siri digital personal assistant.

Along with the willfulness finding, the Federal Circuit also overturned findings of no invalidity on a patent that had already survived multiple reexaminations at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in a decision giving patent owners further reason to question whether the Federal Circuit may be more aligned with anti-patent viewpoints… “We hold that a reexamination confirming patentability of a patent claim alone is not determinative of whether a genuine issue of fact precludes summary judgment of no invalidity,” the Federal Circuit’s opinion reads.

Exmark Manufacturing was awarded $24 million in compensatory damages after a jury found that Briggs and Stratton infringed Exmark’s patent on a lawn mower with improved flow control baffles. The award was doubled by the court, after a finding that Briggs and Stratton’s infringement was willful. On appeal, Briggs challenged six holdings: (1) summary judgment that claim 1 was not anticipated or obvious; (2) denial of summary judgment that claim 1 is indefinite; (3) denial of a new trial on damages; (4) evidentiary rulings related to damages; (5) denial of a new trial on willfulness; and, (6) denial of Brigg’s laches defense. The Federal Circuit vacated findings of willfulness and the underlying damages award, remanding to the trial court.

HoloTouch, Inc. filed a lawsuit asserting willful patent infringement claims against Redmond, WA-based tech giant Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT). Filed in the Southern District of New York, the suit alleges that Microsoft has ignored licensing talks with the original inventor of certain holographic interface input technologies which were developed in the mid-1990s even while filing patent applications which cite to patents issued to HoloTouch as prior art.

On November 21st, a jury verdict entered in the Eastern District of Texas awarded $12.3 million in damages to Tinnus Enterprises and ZURU Ltd. in a patent infringement case against major U.S. telemarketing firms Telebrands and its subsidiary Bulbhead.com. The verdict, which also carries a finding of willful infringement of the patents-in-suit, further upheld the validity of patents owned by Tinnus in stark contrast to findings which have issued by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) on those patents.

The reality created by eBay in light of the AIPA is simple: If you scrape an invention off the USPTO website and massively commercialize it, you get to keep it. Ubiquity has become a defense. How odd that ubiquity caused by your own initial theft becomes an impenetrable shield in patent infringement litigation… Of course, not all infringers should be liable for willful patent infringement. Some infringers are not the experts in the field. Some are users of technology produced by the experts. If you are a small coffee shop and you purchase a router, you are not an expert and you are not willfully infringing. You just bought a product that some infringer sold you and you reasonably believed could be lawfully purchased and used. But if you are the company producing that router, it must be assumed that you are willfully infringing.

On Monday, October 16th, the Internet security company VirnetX (AMEX:VHC) of Zephyr Cove, NV, announced the results of a patent litigation campaign it had pursued against Cupertino, CA-based consumer tech giant Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL). According to a press release issued by VirnetX, the Eastern District of Texas increased the damages to be paid by Apple from $302.4 million in a prior jury verdict up to nearly $440 million for Apple’s infringement of patents covering secure communications in applications like FaceTime.

Idenix Pharmaceuticals LLC v. Gilead Pharmaceuticals, Inc., C.A. No. 14-846-LPS (Delaware Dist. Court, Sept 22, 2017) (“Idenix v. Gilead”), is a good example of the exercise of such discretion by a district court.  Rich in facts, the case is suitable for the application of the flexible contextual standards the Supreme Court showed preference for in Halo.  Also, the case involves balancing the public good of promoting innovation by deterring willful infringement against the public good of facilitating imitation and refinement through imitation.  It is apparent from the Court’s reasoning that it was being very mindful that without the particular “refinement through imitation,” involved in the case, a life-saving cure for hepatitis C would not have been discovered.  Enhanced damages were not awarded.

In one of the first district court cases to apply Halo, the Eastern District of Pennsylvania was confronted with a defendant who obtained a noninfringement opinion sometime around the final day of a 12 to 18 month project. See: Dominion Res. Inc. v. Alstom Grid Inc., No. CV 15-224, 2016 WL 5674713 (E.D. Pa. Oct. 3, 2016) (holding that the defendant’s state of mind on the final day of 12-18 month project was far too late to be defense to willfulness) (appeal pending). The court ruled that opinion letters obtained so long after infringement began, even if still during the period of infringement, did not absolve the defendant of willful infringement under a subjective recklessness standard. Shortly thereafter, the District of Delaware was confronted with a case in which the defendant obtained a noninfringement and invalidity opinion well before litigation, and the defendant even modified designs of the products at issue to conform to recommendations contained therein…

The inventor of the two patents-in-suit is Dan Brown, Sr., president and founder of LoggerHead. He also teaches engineering at Northwestern University’s Segal Design Institute. Brown came up with the concept for the adjustable gripping tool, which LoggerHead markets as the Bionic Wrench, after watching his son try to work on a lawnmower with a pair of pliers. Realizing that there was no good tool to serve as a substitute, Brown worked for three years to create a suitable gripping tool while performing market research, evaluating sales channels and searching for an American manufacturer for the product, according to LoggerHead’s second amended complaint filed in the case.

The makers of TRX fitness and training equipment, was awarded more than $6.8 million in damages after a jury verdict finding willful patent infringement by San Carlos, CA-based Woss Enterprises LLC. The lawsuit surrounded allegations that Woss infringed upon patents covering Fitness Anywhere’s suspension trainer equipment. The jury verdict included a finding of willful infringement of patents asserted in the case. The case was tried and decided in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (N.D. Cal.).

Various Synopsys parties and EVE-USA, Inc. (collectively “Synopsys”) sued Mentor Graphics, seeking a declaration that Mentor’s ’376, ’531, and ’176 patents were invalid and not infringed. Mentor counterclaimed for willful infringement of those three patents, and also asserted infringement of two more (the ’526 and ’109 patents). The court consolidated the case with another involving a fourth patent owned by Mentor (the ’882 patent)… A jury does not have to further apportion lost profits to patented features of a larger product after applying the Panduit factors, which implicitly incorporate apportionment into the lost profit award. Claim preclusion applies when a claim was asserted, or could have been asserted, in a prior action. It does not bar allegations that did not exist at the time of the earlier action.