Federal Judiciary

Defense verdict in patent case in Marshall; trial stats so far in 2009

By Michael C. Smith

Last Thursday a Marshall jury in Judge Ward's court in Fiber Systems Int'l v. Applied Optical, 2:06cv473 returned a defense verdict on infringement in a patent case.  One claim and one product was submitted - from what I've been able to ascertain the plaintiff dropped the rest of the asserted claims right before trial started, and Judge Ward JMOLed two of the three accused products before the case went to the jury.  As for defenses, as I noted in a prior post, a number were summary judged the day before the pretrial conference and a couple set for a later bench trial - the remainder, including invalidity did not go to the jury (whether they were voluntarily dropped by the defendant or dismissed as a result of JMOL rulings I don't yet know).

If true, I think that's the third defense jury verdict in the district this year in patent cases (two Marshall and one Beaumont), not counting Judge Davis' ruling in favor of Microsoft after jury selection in the Fenner case in March, and Judge Ward's granting of JMOL in defendant's favor at the conclusion of the plaintiff's case in Paradox.  That's without getting into the sticky issue of how you count defense wins on damages (Retractable) or on postverdict JMOLs on damages (Hearing Components - award reduced postverdict from $4.6 million to $1.39 million).  By my count then, you can score it this year so far anywhere from 8-3-1 to 6-6-1 (depends on whether you count a post-jury selection grant of summary judgment or not) depending on what you count as a plaintif win and what as a defense win.  The tie is, of course the Thermapure case, which as I posted last was, was a plaintiff win on infringement but a hung jury on damages, which will be retried on damages next March.

Full post as published by Eastern District of Texas Federal Court Practice on November 23, 2009 (boomark / email).