Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-14-01731/USCOURTS-ca13-14-01731-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Innovention Toys, LLC
Appellee
MGA Entertainment, Inc.
Appellant
Toys "R" Us, Inc.
Appellant
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
Appellant

Document Text:

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

INNOVENTION TOYS, LLC,

Plaintiff-Appellee

v.

MGA ENTERTAINMENT, INC., WAL-MART 

STORES, INC., TOYS "R" US, INC.,

Defendants-Appellants

______________________ 

2014-1731

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Eastern District of Louisiana in No. 2:07-cv-06510-SMMBN, Judge Susie Morgan.

______________________ 

Decided: April 29, 2015

______________________ 

JAMES C. OTTESON, Arnold & Porter, LLP, Palo Alto, 

CA, argued for plaintiff-appellee. Also represented by 

DAVID A. CAINE, THOMAS T. CARMACK; BRANDON D. BAUM,

Agility IP Law, LLP, Menlo Park, CA.

 

DONALD ROBERT DUNNER, Finnegan, Henderson, 

Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP, Washington, DC, 

argued for defendants-appellants. Also represented by

ALLEN MARCEL SOKAL.

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2 INNOVENTION TOYS, LLC v. MGA ENTERTAINMENT, INC. 

______________________ 

Before LOURIE, PLAGER, and TARANTO, Circuit Judges.

TARANTO, Circuit Judge. 

Innovention Toys, LLC sued MGA Entertainment, 

Inc., Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., and Toys “R” Us, Inc. (collectively, MGA) for infringement of U.S. Patent No. 

7,264,242, entitled “Light-Reflecting Board Game.” The 

district court initially held, on summary judgment, that 

MGA infringed the asserted claims of the patent and had 

not created a triable issue on its obviousness challenge. 

The district court entered an injunction against MGA, 

which appealed under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(c)(1). We affirmed on infringement but vacated and remanded on 

nonobviousness because the district court had failed to 

recognize that key prior-art references were pertinent 

prior art and had incorrectly found the level of ordinary

skill in the art to be that of a layperson. Innovention 

Toys, LLC v. MGA Entm’t, Inc., 637 F.3d 1314 (Fed. Cir. 

2011). On remand, the case proceeded to trial, where the 

jury rejected MGA’s obviousness challenge, found that 

MGA’s infringement was willful, and awarded damages to 

Innovention both from the time the patent issued and, 

under 35 U.S.C. § 154(d), from the time the patent application was published. The district court adopted the 

jury’s findings and trebled the damages under 35 U.S.C. 

§ 284. On MGA’s new appeal, we reverse only as to

willful infringement and remand for entry of a judgment 

without any enhancement under § 284 and for reconsideration of the award of attorney’s fees under 35 U.S.C. 

§ 285.

BACKGROUND

The ’242 patent discloses a chess-like board game and 

methods for playing the game. The board generates laser 

beams for the players, who have various movable board 

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INNOVENTION TOYS, LLC v. MGA ENTERTAINMENT, INC. 3

pieces. Some of the pieces have mirrors that can reflect 

(and change the direction of) the laser beams. The players “alternate in moving pieces from square to square or 

rotating pieces in place.” ’242 patent (Abstract). Each 

player’s goal is to direct his or her laser onto the opposing

side’s “key piece.” Id. 

Claim 31 is representative:

A board game for two opposing players or 

teams of players comprising:

a game board, movable playing pieces having at least one mirrored surface, movable 

key playing pieces having no mirrored surfaces, and a laser source, 

wherein alternate turns are taken to move 

playing pieces for the purpose of deflecting 

laser beams so as to illuminate the key 

playing piece of the opponent.

Id., col. 12, lines 37–44. The preferred embodiment is 

Egyptian-themed—the key piece dubbed the “Pharaoh,” 

the non-key pieces dubbed “Obelisks,” “Pyramids,” and 

“Djeds.” 

Innovention, the assignee of the patent, was formed to 

create and sell a game based on the patent. It marketed 

its game first as “Deflexion” and later as “Khet.”

Innovention exhibited a prototype of Deflexion at the 

International Toy Fair in New York City in early 2005. 

Around the same time, MGA game developer Ami Shapiro 

began work on a board game called “Laser Battle.” Mr. 

Shapiro’s resume lists him as attending the fair. In 

December 2005, Mr. Shapiro bought two copies of Deflexion, sending one to an MGA engineer in China, Alex Fan. 

Upon receipt of the game, Mr. Fan remarked to Mr. 

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4 INNOVENTION TOYS, LLC v. MGA ENTERTAINMENT, INC. 

Shapiro over email that the box was “marked with ‘patent 

pending’” and asked whether Mr. Shapiro knew which 

part was patented. J.A. 5030. The record contains no 

response from Mr. Shapiro. 

In February 2006, Innovention filed a patent application (11/353,863), which was published in October 2006 

and which, with certain amendments to the claims, issued 

as the ’242 patent in September 2007. While Mr. Shapiro 

and Mr. Fan worked on Laser Battle, Innovention sold 

Deflexion in impressive numbers and garnered critical 

acclaim for the game. When Innovention learned of Laser 

Battle in late 2006, it sent MGA a notice letter with a 

copy of the published ’863 application. MGA did not 

respond. After MGA began selling Laser Battle through 

retailers, Innovention sued MGA for infringement of 

claims 31–33, 39–41, 43, 44, 48–50, 53, and 54.

MGA’s defense was that the subject matter of the asserted claims would have been obvious to a relevant 

skilled artisan at the relevant time in light of (a) Swift’s

U.S. Patent No. 5,145,182, which claims a laser board 

game with deflecting pieces that players put in place 

before, but do not move during, the game and (b) two 

“Laser Chess” magazine articles, which disclose a computer game in which each player manipulates screen 

images of a “laser-firing piece and various reflective 

objects” to try to hit the opponent’s “king,” J.A. 5310. 

Before trial, the district court granted summary judgment 

of infringement and nonobviousness and on that basis 

enjoined MGA. On appeal, this court vacated and remanded with respect to nonobviousness, holding in key 

part that the Laser Chess articles are analogous prior art

that must be considered in the obviousness analysis. 

Innovention, 637 F.3d at 1321–24. In remanding, we 

noted that various factual issues awaited resolution by 

the district court, including the scope and content of the 

prior art, the differences between the prior art and the 

claimed invention, the level of skill in the art, the presCase: 14-1731 Document: 44-2 Page: 4 Filed: 04/29/2015
INNOVENTION TOYS, LLC v. MGA ENTERTAINMENT, INC. 5

ence or absence of motivation to combine, and the persuasiveness of any objective indicia of nonobviousness. Id. at 

1323–24.

At trial, the jury resolved all issues in Innovention’s 

favor, finding that (1) a skilled artisan would have a 

bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering or equivalent 

experience; (2) there are differences between the combination of the prior art and the claims; (3) it is not highly 

probable that a skilled artisan would have had both a 

motivation to combine the prior art and a reasonable 

expectation of success; (4) six objective indicia—including 

commercial success, long-felt need, praise, and copying—

point to nonobviousness; (5) it is not highly probable that 

the claims would have been obvious to a skilled artisan; 

and (6) MGA’s infringement of the ’242 patent was willful.

As to damages, the jury awarded $1,405,708 in lostprofit damages starting in September 2007, the time of 

the patent’s issuance, and $167,455 in reasonable-royalty 

damages for the pre-issuance period starting in October 

2006, the date the patent application was published. 

With respect to pre-issuance damages, the district court 

had already ruled, in denying a summary-judgment 

motion by MGA, that such damages would be permissible

under 35 U.S.C. § 154(d) because the scope of the issued 

claims are substantially identical to the scope of the 

published application’s claims. MGA preserved the issue 

in seeking judgment as a matter of law under Fed. R. Civ. 

P. 50, and the district court rejected MGA’s renewed 

contention on the issue by relying on its earlier summaryjudgment analysis. The district court also denied MGA’s 

post-verdict motion for judgment as a matter of law or a 

new trial on obviousness and on willful infringement, 

concluding in particular that MGA’s obviousness defense 

was not objectively reasonable. The court then trebled 

the damages award. 

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6 INNOVENTION TOYS, LLC v. MGA ENTERTAINMENT, INC. 

MGA appeals the district court’s determinations regarding nonobviousness, willful infringement, and preissuance damages. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 

U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1).

DISCUSSION

The case arises from within the Fifth Circuit. The 

standards of review are the normal ones: de novo review 

of the denial of a motion for judgment as a matter of law, 

a motion that may not be granted “unless there is no 

legally sufficient evidentiary basis for a reasonable jury to 

find as the jury did,” Goodner v. Hyundai Motor Co., 650 

F.3d 1034, 1039–40 (5th Cir. 2011) (internal quotation 

marks omitted); and abuse-of-discretion review of the 

denial of a new-trial motion for want of a showing that 

“the verdict is against the great weight of the evidence,” 

Carr v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 312 F.3d 667, 670 (5th Cir. 

2002) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

A 

MGA’s primary argument is that the ’242 patent 

should be invalidated for obviousness over Swift and the 

Laser Chess articles. Obviousness presents a question of 

law based on underlying findings of fact. Graham v. John 

Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 17 (1966). Relevant facts include 

the scope and content of the prior art, the differences 

between the prior art and the claimed invention, the level 

of ordinary skill in the field of the invention, and any 

relevant objective indicia of nonobviousness. Id. at 17–18. 

Moreover, “[a] party asserting that a patent is obvious 

‘must demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that 

a skilled artisan would have had reason to combine the 

teaching of the prior art references to achieve the claimed 

invention, and that the skilled artisan would have had a 

reasonable expectation of success from doing so.’” PAR 

Pharm., Inc. v. TWI Pharm., Inc., 773 F.3d 1186, 1193 

(Fed. Cir. 2014). “[W]e review any underlying findings of 

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INNOVENTION TOYS, LLC v. MGA ENTERTAINMENT, INC. 7

fact by the jury—whether explicit or implicit—for substantial evidence, [and] the ultimate determination of 

obviousness . . . de novo.” MobileMedia Ideas LLC v. 

Apple Inc., 780 F.3d 1159, 1167 (Fed. Cir. 2015).

The district court properly denied MGA’s motion for 

judgment as a matter of law or a new trial. There was 

substantial evidence for the jury reasonably to have found 

that MGA did not prove facts essential to its particular 

obviousness challenge. Likewise, the district court did not 

abuse its discretion in concluding that the jury’s findings 

were not against the great weight of the evidence. We

need not separate those closely related issues in our 

discussion of the evidence. 

As the district court discussed at great length, the jury here not only determined that the subject matter of the 

claims would have been nonobvious, but also decided 

every underlying factual issue in favor of that conclusion. 

In particular, the jury found that MGA had not proved a 

reason to combine the prior-art references with a reasonable expectation of success. The evidence is sufficient to 

support that finding. That conclusion, which is reinforced 

by sufficient evidence of objective indicia of nonobviousness, disposes of MGA’s obviousness challenge here. 

MGA presented little evidence on motivation to combine with a reasonable expectation of success. The only 

evidence that it has identified, beyond the prior-art documents’ own content, is the testimony of its expert, Mr. 

Phillips. But Mr. Phillips did no more than cursorily 

identify the conceptual relatedness of Swift and the Laser 

Chess articles. J.A. 1889 (“Both [are] styles of presentation . . . they’re teaching methods. They’re ways to get 

into your mind a concept. And so they’re equally valuable, in my view, for teaching you what game elements are. 

And that’s why I think it’s [] legitimate to combine 

these. . . .”). This testimony says nothing about why an 

ordinarily skilled artisan would have a reasonable expecCase: 14-1731 Document: 44-2 Page: 7 Filed: 04/29/2015
8 INNOVENTION TOYS, LLC v. MGA ENTERTAINMENT, INC. 

tation of success in creating the claimed workable physical game, with real lasers and regularly moving and 

rotating game pieces, based on Swift, which involves

pieces fixed during play, and two articles about a computer game involving mere graphical images of lasers. More 

fundamentally, the testimony gives little reason that a 

person of ordinary skill in the art—with Swift and the 

Laser Chess articles hanging somewhere on the figurative 

wall of pertinent art, as we previously held—would have 

defined a problem to be solved in such a way as to provide 

a motivation to pick out those references for combination. 

The Supreme Court has confirmed that “any need or 

problem known in the field of endeavor at the time of 

invention and addressed by the patent can provide a 

reason for combining the elements in the manner 

claimed.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 420 

(2007) (emphases added). We have noted that “courts 

may find a motivation to combine prior art references in 

the nature of the problem to be solved.” Tokai Corp. v. 

Easton Enters., Inc., 632 F.3d 1358, 1371 (Fed. Cir. 2011) 

(emphasis added) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

But those standards identify factual issues, and in resolving the issues, it generally matters what evidence is 

submitted in a given case about whether a need or problem actually was known in the field and would in fact 

have motivated an asserted combination. See, e.g., 

Alexsam, Inc. v. IDT Corp., 715 F.3d 1336, 1347–48 (Fed. 

Cir. 2013); Kinetic Concepts, Inc. v. Smith & Nephew, Inc., 

688 F.3d 1342, 1368–69 (Fed. Cir. 2012). In this case, the 

prior-art documents standing alone do not compel findings on motivation and expectation as a matter of law, 

and it was reasonable for the jury to find MGA’s evidence 

on these topics to be insufficient.

That is so, in particular, when the full evidence is 

considered, including Innovention’s evidence supporting 

rejection of MGA’s obviousness contention. Its expert, Dr. 

Eimerl, testified to the absence of a motivation to combine 

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INNOVENTION TOYS, LLC v. MGA ENTERTAINMENT, INC. 9

because a person having ordinary skill at the time of 

invention “[was] thinking about making board games like 

Monopoly and Stratego and Operation, [so] why would [he 

or she] pick out [Swift and the Laser Chess articles]?” 

J.A. 2117. He also noted that MGA’s expert, far from 

identifying recognition at the time of invention of a problem whose solution would lead to Innovention’s claimed 

invention, presented a hindsight analysis: 

[Mr. Phillips] started from the wrong approach. 

He started from saying, with the ’242 patent and 

worked backwards. In other words, he said if I 

had the idea of inventing the ’242 patent and I 

was given these or the features of something with 

the features of the Khet game, I already had that 

idea in mind and I was handed the prior art, that 

is the video game articles and Swift patent, and if 

I already had it in mind to be thinking about a laser game, then, he made an analysis based on 

whether or not they would, the person of ordinary 

skill in the art would make it from the prior art to 

that, to a laser game.

J.A. 2116–17; see also KSR, 550 U.S. at 421 (“A factfinder 

should be aware . . . of the distortion caused by hindsight 

bias and must be cautious of arguments reliant upon ex 

post reasoning.”). Finally, Dr. Eimerl testified that a 

person of ordinary skill in the art would not have readily 

seen from the prior art, or known generally, how to solve 

the problems of making a workable real-laser, frequentmovement board game. J.A. 2104, 2117–27. His testimony tends to suggest no reasonable expectation of success.

The evidence in this case permitted a judgment of 

nonobviousness on the foregoing prior-art-focused bases. 

That evidence was supplemented, moreover, by substantial evidence supporting the jury’s express findings of 

several objective indicia of nonobviousness, including

commercial success of Innovention’s product, which

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10 INNOVENTION TOYS, LLC v. MGA ENTERTAINMENT, INC. 

embodied the claimed invention; praise from others in the 

field; and MGA’s copying of Innovention’s product. The 

district court summarized the evidence on those issues, 

including evidence permitting the jury to make credibility 

findings and to otherwise reject certain submitted testimony by MGA’s Mr. Shapiro. J.A. 52–59. In light of all 

the evidence, the district court did not err in refusing to 

disturb the jury’s verdict of nonobviousness.

B 

MGA argues against the award of pre-issuance reasonable-royalty damages on the ground that the scope of 

the claims changed from the published application to the 

issued patent. “[T]o obtain a reasonable royalty” based on

pre-issuance activities that would infringe if they took 

place post-issuance, “the invention as claimed in the 

patent [must be] substantially identical to the invention 

as claimed in the published patent application.” 35 

U.S.C. § 154(d)(2). “[C]laims are ‘identical’ to their original counterparts if they are ‘without substantive 

change.’” Laitram Corp. v. NEC Corp., 163 F.3d 1342, 

1346 (Fed. Cir. 1998) (quoting Seattle Box Co. v. Indus. 

Crating & Packing, 731 F.2d 818, 827–28 (Fed. Cir. 1984))

(interpreting “substantially identical” in the reissue 

context, 35 U.S.C. § 252). “[I]n determining whether 

substantive changes have been made, we must discern 

whether the scope of the claims are identical, not merely 

whether different words are used.” Id. We review de 

novo the ultimate legal conclusion that claims are identical in scope, id., and the parties have not suggested that 

there are any material underlying factual findings here, 

see Teva Pharm. USA, Inc. v. Sandoz, Inc., 135 S. Ct. 831, 

835 (2015).

MGA primarily argues against such so-called “provisional rights” damages on the ground that, because “no 

published [application] claim required movable key pieces 

while all of the [issued] patent claims do, the published 

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and issued claims as a matter of law differ in scope.” 

Appellant’s Brief at 60. We reject that argument. For 

example, claim 31 of the published application required 

players to take turns “to move playing pieces.” J.A. 5026; 

see also, e.g., J.A. 5026–27 (claim 39). The movability 

requirement in no way excludes “key” game pieces (playing pieces): claim 31 itself refers to the piece to be illuminated as “a key playing piece,” J.A. 5026; and the written 

description makes express that (the to-be-illuminated) 

game piece 30 “is the key game piece” and describes “the 

moves that are available to a particular game piece 30

. . . .” J.A. 5021–22. We agree with the district court that 

the movability of key pieces was already present in the 

claims of the published application.

MGA argues in the alternative that some of the 

claims were subject to broadening amendments through a 

change of the transitional phrase “consisting of” to “comprising.” See, e.g., J.A. 5122 (claim 39). But those 

amendments do not stand in the way of pre-issuance 

damages in this case. At least some of the claims found to 

infringe here retain their original scope, and MGA has not

contended that any of the infringing acts here infringed 

only the broadened claims. See Aqua-Aerobic Sys., Inc. v. 

Richards of Rockford, Inc., 835 F.2d 871, at *1 (Fed. Cir. 

1987) (unpublished) (“[T]he number of valid claims infringed here has no bearing on damages.”). That is sufficient reason to reject MGA’s contention. We need not 

further explore the effect of the transitional-language 

change in particular claims. 

For those reasons, we conclude that the district court 

did not err in permitting pre-issuance damages. 

C 

Finally, MGA challenges the determinations by the 

jury, J.A. 118, and district court, J.A. 37–63, that MGA 

was willful in its infringement. The applicable standards 

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12 INNOVENTION TOYS, LLC v. MGA ENTERTAINMENT, INC. 

are undisputed by the parties. It is enough here to note 

that willfulness is not established where the defendant 

has a substantial, objectively reasonable, though ultimately rejected, defense, including an obviousness defense. Spine Solutions, Inc. v. Medtronic Sofamor Danek 

USA, Inc., 620 F.3d 1305, 1319 (Fed. Cir. 2010); see Halo 

Elecs., Inc. v. Pulse Elecs., Inc., 769 F.3d 1371, 1382–83 

(Fed. Cir. 2014). We review the conclusion on that aspect 

of the willfulness issue de novo, Halo, 769 F.3d at 1382, 

but here, regardless of the standard of review, we conclude that the district court erred in deeming MGA’s 

obviousness defense objectively unreasonable.

The key error was in the court’s discussion of the differences between the claims and prior art—a discussion 

that stressed how, at trial, MGA’s expert witness initially 

relied on an incorrect claim construction of “game piece,” 

had to be corrected as to the requirement that the phrase 

referred to a physical item that can be placed on a physical board, and then acknowledged that the Laser Chess 

articles did not disclose that element. J.A. 46–48. We 

may assume, from the district court’s description and 

Innovention’s presentation to us, that this process had a 

dramatic effect in the courtroom, undermining the expert’s credibility. But the district court gave it a significance it does not have for assessing how large a gap there 

is between the prior art and Innovention’s claims. Under 

any reasonable view, the gap between the prior art and 

Innovention’s claims, while large enough to allow the jury 

to find that MGA did not successfully establish the required motivation to combine with a reasonable expectation of success, was not particularly large. Indeed, it was 

sufficiently small that MGA’s defense was reasonable as a 

matter of law even considering evidence of objective 

indicia of obviousness.

Swift discloses or makes obvious most of the elements 

of the ’242 patent. Compare ’242 patent, col. 12, lines 39–

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41, 49–50 (claim 31: “a game board,” “movable playing 

pieces having at least one mirrored surface,” “movable key 

playing pieces having no mirrored surface,” and “a laser 

source”; claim 33: “recesses on the board to ensure reflection of the laser beam”), with Swift, col. 12, lines 37–38, 

42–43, 45, 47, 49–50, 54–56, 60–61 and col. 13, lines 4, 7–

8 (claim 1: “a playing area having a substantially orthogonal, substantially planar matrix,” “means for projecting 

visually discernible paths,” “means for angularly diverting said paths,” and “a plurality of scoring modules . . . 

having means for detecting contact with said visually 

discernible path”; claim 2: “means for projecting is a laser 

and said visually discernible path is a laser beam”; claim 

4: “means for angularly diverting said path is a mirror”; 

claim 7: “plurality of ‘x’-shaped slots, . . . adaptable to 

fixedly and frictionally secure said means for diverting 

said path”). The Laser Chess articles also teach specific 

elements of the ’242 patent’s claims, though on a virtual 

platform. J.A. 5310 (disclosing a movable king piece with 

no reflective surfaces); id. (“In addition to their ability to 

move from square to square, pieces with reflective surfaces can also be rotated in place in 90-degree increments.”); 

J.A. 5318 (“Partially mirrored stompers can be rotated in

45-degree increments . . . .”). 

Our earlier decision that the Laser Chess articles 

were pertinent art establishes that an ordinary artisan 

creating a physical board game would look to virtual 

games for various purposes, including for some game-step 

elements of Innovention’s patent claims, even though 

computer games’ “pieces” are not physical items to set on 

physical boards. That ruling, and the similarity of details 

just recited, do not resolve the obviousness issue, but they 

do demonstrate that the district court did not draw a 

reasonable conclusion about the magnitude of the advance 

over the prior art needed to arrive at the asserted claims. 

And once that error is corrected, MGA cannot be said to 

have “acted despite an objectively high likelihood that its 

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14 INNOVENTION TOYS, LLC v. MGA ENTERTAINMENT, INC. 

actions constituted infringement of a valid patent,” 

Seagate, 497 F.3d at 1371—no matter how irresponsible it 

was in actually considering the scope or validity of patent 

rights that it knew (from December 2005) that Innovention was seeking and then knew (within about a 

month of issuance) that Innovention had obtained. 

The willfulness determination is therefore reversed. 

It follows that the enhancement of damages must be 

reversed. It also follows that the district court’s award of 

attorney’s fees, which relied in part on the determination 

of willfulness, must be vacated. On remand, the district 

court should reconsider whether an award of attorney’s 

fees is appropriate under § 285, reassessing the question 

without reliance on the now-reversed willfulness finding. 

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district 

court is affirmed in part, reversed in part, and vacated

and remanded in part. 

No costs.

AFFIRMED IN PART, REVERSED IN PART, AND

VACATED AND REMANDED IN PART

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