5 Key Takeaways | SALT and Multinational Businesses: Analyzing State and Local Taxation of Foreign Company Transactions
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a damages verdict amounting to tens of millions of dollars. The Court found that the patentee’s damages expert correctly apportioned value to the patented feature and...more
In a significant decision providing guidance on the admissibility of expert testimony on patent damages, the Federal Circuit has affirmed both the validity and the substantial-damages verdict for infringement of Willis...more
In our Case of the Week, the Federal Circuit reviewed expert damages testimony en route to affirming a $42.5 million reasonable royalty award on appellant Polygroup’s infringing artificial Christmas trees....more
In Rex Medical, L.P., v. Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (“Rex”), the Federal Circuit affirmed the District Court’s reduction of a jury award from $10 million to $1. At trial, with no damages experts testifying, a jury awarded $10...more
Rex Medical, L.P. v. Intuitive Surgical, Inc., Case No. 24-1072 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 2, 2025) - The Federal Circuit’s opinion in Rex Medical, L.P. v. Intuitive Surgical, Inc. underscores the judiciary’s strict insistence on...more
On October 2, 2025, in Rex Medical, LP v. Intuitive Surgical, Inc., Nos. 2024-1072, 2024-1125, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a district court's preclusion of Rex's patent damages expert from...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a district court decision excluding a damages expert’s testimony and reducing a jury’s $10 million damages award to nominal damages. The Court found that the plaintiff...more
On May 21, 2025, the Federal Circuit “reverse[d] the district court’s denial of Google’s motion and remand[ed] for a new trial on damages.” The decision resulted in an 8-2 vote, with Judges Reyna and Stark dissenting. The...more
Over the last several years, the Federal Circuit has increasingly scrutinized patent litigants’ reliance on “comparable licenses” as a means for calculating a reasonable royalty, including whether the license needs to be...more
On March 24, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“Federal Circuit”) issued an opinion affirming a district court’s judgement of infringement while vacating and remanding the district court’s damages...more
The United States patent system is designed to be a balance: in exchange for the inventor disclosing their invention to the public, pa-tentees are granted exclusive rights to that invention for a period of time. This ensures...more
EcoFactor, Inc. v. Google LLC, Appeal No. 2023-1101 (Fed. Cir. June 3, 2024) In the Federal Circuit’s only precedential patent opinion this week, the court addressed issues of infringement and admissibility that arose...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a district court decision correcting a clerical error in a claim. Pavo Solutions LLC v. Kingston Technology Company, Inc., Case Nos. 21-1834 (Fed. Cir. June 3, 2022)...more
Examining whether portfolio patent licenses can be sufficiently comparable to a single-patent license for the purposes of supporting a patent damages verdict, a split panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit...more
Omega Patents, LLC, v. CalAmp Corp., Appeal Nos. 2020-1793, -1794, (Fed. Cir. Sept. 14, 2021) - In its only precedential patent case this week, the Federal Circuit sent a case back for a third trial on the issue of...more
On August 26, in MCL Intellectual Property, LLC v. Micron Technology, Inc., the Federal Circuit affirmed exclusion of an expert opinion regarding a reasonable royalty, holding that the district court did not abuse its...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a district court’s decision to preclude a damage expert from characterizing license agreements and opining on a reasonable royalty rate where the sponsoring party...more
MLC Intellectual Property, LLC v. Micron Technology, Inc., Appeal No. 2020-1413 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 26, 2021) - For those interested in an important Section 112 written description case, we recommend reading the Juno...more
On April 22, 2020, the Federal Circuit "grappled," as the opinion put it, with the equitable doctrine of assignor estoppel in Hologic, Inc. v. Minerva Surgical, Inc., the Federal Circuit "grappled," as the opinion put it,...more
On January 3, 2019, following a jury’s award of $145 million in damages to Wi-LAN, the Southern District of California granted Apple’s motion for a conditional order of remittitur to a $10 million damages award. In granting...more
Addressing the application of the smallest salable patent-practicing unit analysis, as well as the impact of a patent’s standards essential status on apportionment and the relevance of prior licenses between the parties, the...more