Opinion ID: 212115
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Reasonable Royalty Rate

Text: 40 Jazz argues that the district court erred in denying its JMOL motion seeking to set aside the jury's assessed reasonable royalty of $0.56 as grossly excessive or monstrous, clearly not supported by evidence, or based only on speculation or guesswork. Catalina Lighting, Inc. v. Lamps Plus, Inc., 295 F.3d 1277, 1290 (Fed.Cir.2002). In particular, Jazz contends that the jury should have accorded more weight to Fuji's prior license agreements with other LFFP refurbishers. 41 The jury had before it a wide range of reasonable royalty rates propounded by each party's damages expert. At the lower boundary, Jazz's expert opined that rates of $0.075 and $0.11 were appropriate for its refurbished and newly-made LFFPs, respectively. In stark contrast, Fuji's expert estimated that in a hypothetical negotiation between the parties they would have converged on a royalty rate of $1.00. 42 This court has previously recognized that the jury is not bound to accept a rate proffered by one party's expert but rather may choose an intermediate royalty rate. Unisplay, S.A. v. Am. Elec. Sign Co., Inc., 69 F.3d 512, 519 (Fed.Cir.1995) ([A] jury's [royalty] choice simply must be within the range encompassed by the record as a whole.); see also SmithKline Diagnostics, Inc. v. Helena Labs. Corp., 926 F.2d 1161, 1168 (Fed.Cir.1991) ([T]he district court may reject the extreme figures proffered by the litigants as incredible and substitute an intermediate figure as a matter of its judgment from all of the evidence.). In this case, the jury was within its right to reject Fuji and Jazz's extreme rates and substitute its own. 43 Several points in the record support the jury's royalty determination. For instance, Fuji's patented invention exhibited enormous commercial success. One expert, Mr. Carter, set Jazz's incremental profit at $1.09 and Fuji's lost profits at $2.33 per camera. Thus, the jury's royalty assessment does not show excessiveness or speculation. This court observes that a $0.56 royalty leaves a $0.53 profit margin per LFFP under the figures in the record. This court therefore affirms the jury's reasonable royalty rate.