There’s good news and there’s bad news in this verdict
A Marshall jury in Judge Gilstrap’s court recently returned a verdict in this case involving patent and other claims going both ways.
Verdicts
From stay to verdict
This time the verdict is from Tyler, where a jury passed on a claim that had been stayed previously while proceedings played themselves out at the PTAB. The jury found the single asserted claim infringed, that the claim wasn’t shown by clear and convincing evidence to be invalid, and assessed damages of $1.5 million. I have attached the verdict form and some other tidbits I thought might be of interest on the stay issue.
Oil field technology patent verdict
I’m posting a few pictures from our trip to the Capitol with the local Chamber of Commerce (and our two youngest boys, who served as House pages) last week as they seem appropriate for a verdict from a patent case involving oil field technology. The verdict came from Texarkana last week, where a jury in Judge Schroeder’s court rendered a defense verdict on infringement. Invalidity wasn’t submitted.
Retrial on damages
Back in September of 2016, after a five-day jury trial in this case, a jury unanimously found that the defendant had willfully infringed certain claims of two patents and that the claims were not shown to be invalid and awarded damages of $2.8 million, later enhanced by $456,000 (16% of the verdict – 8% of the potential enhancement under Section 284). Defendant filed a motion for new trial on damages issues dealing with apportionment, which was granted. On retrial, the jury awarded $3.49 million in damages, although using a different time period from the original trial. The decisions(s) in this case that I’ve posted below are full of information on patentable subject matter (of course), as well as damages, willful infringement and enhancement.
Intellectual Ventures patent verdict
A Marshall jury in Judge Gilstrap’s court rendered a verdict Friday in a patent case involving claims by Intellectual Ventures against defendants T-Mobile and Ericsson.
Tyler Patent Verdict in Bifurcated Case
While the rest of us were settling down to watch the election returns Tuesday a Tyler jury in Judge Schroeder’s court rendered a verdict in a patent case involving two claims from a single patent.
Marshall Jury Holds More Asserted Patents Not Infringed & Invalid
This case is a rematch between two companies which make and sell oilfield equipment used to blow stuff up. Last year a Marshall jury in Judge Payne’s court held the six claims asserted in that case not infringed and invalid as (1) obvious, (2) anticipated and (3) due to the on sale bar. This year just two claims were asserted and the Marshall jury in Judge Payne’s court held them not infringed and invalid as well, but only as obvious this time.
Patent jury verdict; indications on submission of Section 101 issues
A Marshall jury in Judge Gilstrap’s court deliberated through 6:15 pm Friday evening in this case, came back for two hours Saturday morning, and finally completed deliberations yesterday morning, returning a verdict in favor of the plaintiff for approximately $10 million. I wanted to address in this post a couple of issues that aren’t in the major media coverage of the case, but might be of interest to practitioners.
Verdict in Maxell v. ZTE; Jury Findings On Eligibility Under Section 101
A Texarkana jury in Judge Schroeder’s court returned a verdict in favor of Maxell against defendant ZTE (USA), Inc. last Friday following a two-week trial. The jury found all 16 claims from the 11 asserted patents infringed. Eleven of the claim from seven patents were found to be infringed willfully. The jury found that four claims across two patents had not been shown to be invalid as anticipated or obvious (one question for all invalidity theories), and assessed damages at $43.3 million. But the jury also made an additional finding in the defendant’s favor with respect to five of the claims that bear some closer scrutiny, as it begins to tell us how 101 claims can be addressed in front of a jury. This reminded me of how Judge Schroeder addressed a similar issue dealing with contract formation in my April jury trial in Texarkana, so I wanted to address that issue in some additional detail (as well as a few others) by analyzing the court’s instructions to the jury.
Kaist verdict – $400 million (updated post)
A Marshall jury in Judge Gilstrap’s court found the asserted claims willfully infringed in the Kaist case and awarded $400 million. It also rejected all of the asserted invalidity defenses. The plaintiff is the intellectual property arm of a South Korean research university. The defendants are Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, Qualcomm, Inc., and GlobalFoundries Inc..
A quick review indicates that this is the largest patent verdict in Marshall since January of 2011 in a medical device case, and the second largest in Judge Gilstrap’s court in the six-plus years he has been on the bench. The only one larger was a Tyler case, Smartflash, which he set aside in postjudgment proceedings.
I’ll post separately on where that leaves us on verdicts compared to last year, and will attach the verdict when it’s posted.