The Source for Standard-Essential & Other Patent Litigation Issues
Yesterday a jury returned a verdict finding that Apple does not infringe Golden Bridge’s patent alleged to be essential to the WCDMA standard. The verdict thus did not reach the royalty-rate issue that was interesting for a few reasons.
Excluded FRAND Expert Testimony. As discussed in our May 30, 2014 post, Magistrate Judge…
Today Judge Whyte issued his awaited post-trial rulings following the jury’s RAND determination on LSI’s IEEE 802.11 WiFi patents in which he (1) denied JMOL motions by both Realtek and LSI, (2) ruled on Realtek’s injunction and declaratory relief requests by denying Realtek’s request to enjoin LSI from seeking to enforce RAND-obligated patents without first…
Magistrate Judge Grewal in N.D. Cal. recently issued an Order excluding the testimony of Golden Bridge Technology’s damages expert because it was based on a flawed methodology for determing a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) royalty rate for the asserted patent alleged to be essential to the 3GPP WCDMA standard. The primary problem appears to…
Last week, Magistrate Judge Grewal in N.D. Cal. denied Apple’s motion for summary judgment that patent owner Golden Bridge Technology was precluded from seeking pre-suit damages due to its alleged failure to comply with the marking statute. Apple’s summary judgment argument was premised on Golden Bridge’s failure to mark the alleged SEP’s patent number on…
Today the Federal Circuit (Lourie, Dyk and Reyna) granted Microsoft’s motion to transfer Motorola’s appeal of Judge Robart’s RAND ruling to the Ninth Circuit, settling the parties dispute whether the Federal Circuit or Ninth Circuit has appellate jurisdiction over this particular appeal (see our Dec. 16, 2013 post and prior posts summarizing transfer…
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court issued two opinions (Octane Fitness and Highmark) that create a more flexible, deferential standard for determining what constitutes an “exceptional” patent case in which a district court has discretion to award reasonable attorney’s fees to the prevailing party. The Court rejected the Federal Circuit’s rigid test that required…
With standard-essential-patent (SEP) damages discussions frequently focused on how to calculate a RAND rate, one can sometimes forget that not all SEPs are subject to [F]RAND obligations, which raises the issue whether and to what extent a reasonable royalty rate would be different between RAND and non-RAND encumbered patents. Last week, N.D. Cal. Judge Lucy…
After being removed to federal district court last May, the Vermont Attorney General’s suit against non-practicing entity MPHJ is being sent back to state court. The decision holds that the AG’s unfair competition claims arising from MPHJ’s patent enforcement efforts belong in state court and raises the question of whether other patent demand letter jurisprudence …
As the Senate continues to weigh patent reform measures focused on improving preliminary disclosures in patent litigation, courts continue to distinguish between sufficient and insufficient disclosures under their own patent local rules. According to a recent ruling from the Northern District of California, a generalized claim that any products practicing a technical standard infringe an…
Yesterday Judge Whyte entered a post-trial scheduling order setting briefing and hearing dates for post-trial motions as well as Realtek’s request to permanently enjoin LSI “from enforcing, or seeking to enforce, any exclusion order or injunction that Defendants [LSI] might obtain with regard with regard to the ‘958 and ‘856 patents [LSI’s WiFi SEPs at…
