Source: https://mcsmith.blogs.com/eastern_district_of_texas/judge_everingham_cases/page/2/
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 10:19:49+00:00

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Scenes on the Square in Marshall: Versata verdict et al.
No, it's not Judges Ward and Everingham - it's my twins at the new Mexican food place on the square in Marshall last week playing with their all-time favorite State Bar of Texas gimme - gavel-shaped pens.
But last week was another notable one on the square in Marshall, with the Versata v. SAP, 2:07cv153 damages trial winding up with a $345 million verdict for the plaintiff. The verdict has a long history to it, as blog readers know.
Back in 2009 Versata won a $138.6 million verdict in Judge Everingham's court, but he set that aside and ordered a new trial on damages. This week a Marshall jury tried the damages case and awarded the plaintiff $260 million in lost profits and $85 million in reasonable royalty damages against SAP.
Things haven't always gone so well for Versata in Marshall - in 2009 shortly before winning its case against SAP it lost a jury verdict against Sun before a Marshall jury in Versata Software v. Sun Microsystems, 2:06cv358. The jury found neither patent was infringed, the asserted claims were invalid, and - ignoring the instruction not to answer the damages question - put down a zero. It also found for Sun on its license defense - and put down another zero - and that Sun had not misappropriated Versata's trade secrets or intentionally interfered with contractual relations. And - again - it put down another zero on damages, just to be safe.
The Marshall jury hearing the retrial on portions of Commil's case against Cisco in Commil v. Cisco, 2:07cv341-CE this week reached a verdict today, finding induced infringement as to the three claims and $63,791,153 in damages. The original damages verdict when the first jury found direct infringement was $3,726,207, so unlike my original post, which described this case as a plaintiff's win on infringement but a defense win on damages (defendant argued that damages, if found, would be in the $3-5 million range, I understand), this one pretty is pretty much a plaintiff win.
As readers are aware, Judge Everingham granted a new trial as to indirect infringement following the original case as a result of the "I bet not pork" and "the most important trial in history ... in the Bible" references by the defendant's counsel at the original trial. The Federal Circuit declined to issue mandamus preventing the retrial, holding that the issues raised could be addressed on direct appeal.
This afternoon a Marshall jury in Judge Everingham's court rendered a verdict for the plaintiff of $9 million in Alexsam v. IDT.
This is usually where I say whether the jury found by clear and convincing evidence that the patents were invalid as obvious or anticipated, but for the second verdict in a row (first was Saffran v. J&J two weeks ago), these questions were submitted under the lower preponderance of the evidence standard, and the jury found that the defendant had not so shown even under that lower standard.
In both cases the plaintiff agreed to the submission using this wording, so that a change in the current standard by the i4i v. Microsoft case pending before the Supreme Court would not require reversal, since the jury's "no" finding was under the lower standard anyway. Whether this reflects the bar's assessment of the odds on the Microsoft appeal or is just playing it safe for appellate purposes you can discuss among yourselves. The "c & c" standard was still used for the inventorship question, and the jury found "no" on that one as well.
There is more to be said about this case, but I will get to it hopefully sometime next week.
This is a false marking case in which the alleged false marking by the defendant not the routine case of an expired patent, but rather a patent which is valid and unexpired, but which had previously been held to be unenforceable. Specifically, the plaintiff noted that the patents were declared unenforceable for fraud on the Patent Office by Judge Ward in Medtronic Vascular, Inc. v. Boston Sci. Corp., Civ. No. 2:06-cv-78, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 67819 (E.D. Tex. Aug. 28, 2008). That litigation was settled on February 11, 2009, but Judge Ward declined to vacate his judgment of unenforceability. Thus, Promote alleged that since the patents were held unenforceable, it constituted false patent marking when Medtronic marked, and continued to mark, its stent products with the patents.
Medtronic's motion to dismiss also sought dismissal on three other grounds: (1) Medtronic‟s products are not “unpatented” because Medtronic stated its products were protected by “one or more” of a number of listed patents, and some of the other listed patents are valid and enforceable; (2) the Complaint does not adequately plead that Medtronic marked its products with intent to deceive the public; (3) the false patent marking statute is unconstitutional under Article II, § 3 of the United States Constitution (the “Take Care” Clause). "Regarding these arguments," Judge Everingham wrote, "the undersigned recommends adopting the reasoning and analysis in Riley v. St. Luke’s Episcopal Hosp., 252 F.3d 749, 753-758 (5th Cir. 2001) (en banc) (discussing how the False Claims Act (FCA), a similar qui tam statute, does not violate the “Take Care” Clause of the United States Constitution) and cited the other recent local opinions which found similar allegations of intent to deceive sufficient, at least pending further guidance from the Federal Circuit.
Motion to Transfer Venue Granted: Factors Favored Transfer & Plaintiff's Location "Recent, Ephemeral"
Instantly rendering my recent venue paper incomplete is Judge Everingham's opinion last week granting a motion to transfer where he found that the private and public factors favored transfer, and that the Plaintiff's location in the district didn't counsel a different result. He noted that the plaintiff allegedly moved its office to a residential apartment complex in Frisco (which is in the Eastern District) less than three weeks before this suit was filed, thus although the plaintiff did have a long term presence in Texas, its presence in the district "appears to be recent, ephemeral, and an artifact of litigation." In this case one defendant's headquarters was located in the Northern District of California, and the "vast majority" of the other defendant's witnesses and evidence were located in Oregon, thus the transferee district was clearly more convenient.
Some days you're receiving congratulations to your opposing counsel following a jury verdict, and some days you're on the extending side. This morning I was on the extending side after a Marshall jury in Judge Chad Everingham's court rendered a defense verdict on infringement and invalidity (anticipation and obviousness) as to all seven asserted claims in Ameranth v. Menusoft, 2:07cv271.

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