Federal Judiciary

Marshall Juries Split on a Pair of Patent Cases

By Michael C. Smith

As I wrote a few days ago, it's been a busy couple of weeks for the court in Marshall, where Judge Everingham has been trying a case downstairs and Judge Ward upstairs,  First across the finish line was Opti v. Apple, 2:07cv21 in which the jury yesterday found that Apple willfully infringed Opti's patent, and that Apple had not shown by clear and convincing evidence that the patent was invalid either as anticipated or obvious.  The jury set damages at $19,009,728.
Things didn't go so well for the plaintiff upstairs in Judge Ward's court.  This afternoon the jury in Versata Software v. Sun Microsystems, 2:06cv358.  the jury found that neither patent was infringed, and all the asserted claims of both patents were shown be clear and convincing evidence to be invalid.  The jury disregarded the instruction not to answer the damages question put down a zero anyway, and then proceeded to find that Sun had provne its patent license defense, that Sun had not breached a license agreement that was at issue, and again, insisted in putting down a zero for damages.  The jury found that Sun had not misappropriated Versata's trade secrets or intentionally interefered with contractual relations - and - again - put down zero in damages for both claims just to be safe.

Full post as published by Eastern District of Texas Federal Court Practice on April 24, 2009 (boomark / email).