Posts Tagged: "willful patent infringement"

Willful Infringement, Opinion Letters, & Post-Halo Trends

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…

Stryker receives treble damages as part of $248.7M award after 2016 remand from SCOTUS

The final judgment and permanent injunction follows the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last June in Stryker Corp. v. Zimmer Inc. (consolidated with Halo Electronics, Inc. v. Pulse Electronics, Inc.) to vacate and remand a previous decision of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Fed. Cir.)… The damages awarded to Stryker in the final judgment entered into the W.D. Mich. court include $70 million in lost profits; pursuant to Section 284 findings of willfulness, this lost profits award is also trebled to $210 million in the final judgment.

Makers of Bionic Wrench awarded $5.9M by federal jury against Sears in willful infringement verdict

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.

Makers of TRX exercise equipment win $6.8 million patent verdict, prove willful infringement

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.).

Mentor Graphics v. Synopsys: Affirmed-in-Part, Reversed-in-Part, Vacated-in-Part, and Remanded

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.