Federal Judiciary

Yahoo! A verdict in first of two Tyler patent cases

By Michael C. Smith

The 2007 patent filings continue to work their way through the Eastern District courts this month. Last month saw Judges Ward and Everingham trying two patent cases in Marshall. This month the excitement (if you can call it that) shifted to Tyler where Judges Davis and Love have been trying patent cases simultaneously beginning last week.

The first trial wrapped up Friday with Yahoo!'s much-publicized decision to take a patent case to trial in Creative Internet Advertising v. Yahoo!.  The Tyler jury in Judge Love's court found that Yahoo!'s Messenger program infringed the asserted claims, and that the infringement was willful.  The jury found that the defendant had not shown by clear and convincing evidence that the patent was invalid, and assessed damages of $6.625,584.  It's my understanding that both sides' experts agreed on the damages base, and the jury gave the plaintiff the number it asked for, which represented about a 20% royalty.  If that's not correct someone let me know and I'll revise this post.

Full post as published by Eastern District of Texas Federal Court Practice on May 20, 2009 (boomark / email).