Opinion ID: 2787044
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Supplemental Damages

Text: “[T]he amount of supplemental damages following a jury verdict is a matter committed to the sound discretion of the district court.” SynQor, Inc. v. Artesyn Techs., Inc., 709 F.3d 1365, 1384 (Fed. Cir. 2013) (internal quotation marks omitted). “A district court abuses its discretion when it ma[kes] a clear error of judgment in weighing relevant factors or exercise[s] its discretion based upon an error of law or clearly erroneous factual findings.” Aqua Shield v. Inter Pool Cover Team, 774 F.3d 766, 770 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (alterations in original, internal quotation marks omitted). We reject Arthrex’s challenges to the supplemental-damages award.
not have had the knowledge required to indirectly infringe during the period after the district court granted JMOL to Arthrex (or perhaps even when, during the last trial, it announced its belief that Arthrex was likely to win the jury verdict or eventual JMOL) and before this court reversed in S&N II. In considering this contention, we apply the Supreme Court’s formulation: “induced infringement under § 271(b) requires knowledge that the induced acts constitute patent infringement.” GlobalTech Appliances, Inc. v. SEB S.A., 131 S. Ct. 2060, 2068 (2011) (extending the knowledge requirement for contributory infringement under § 271(c) to induced infringement under § 271(b)). Arthrex rests its argument entirely on the contention that a good-faith belief in non-infringement negates the 16 SMITH & NEPHEW INCORPORATED v. ARTHREX, INCORPORATED required knowledge and is established as a matter of law by the district court’s ruling (or pronouncement). But such a good-faith belief presents a factual question. See, e.g., Commil USA, LLC v. Cisco Systems, Inc., 720 F.3d 1361, 1368–69 (Fed. Cir. 2013), cert. granted in part, 135 S. Ct. 752 (2014); Fujitsu Ltd. v. Netgear Inc., 620 F.3d 1321, 1330 (Fed. Cir. 2010); cf. KangaROOS U.S.A., Inc. v. Caldor, Inc., 778 F.2d 1571, 1573 (Fed. Cir. 1985) (“Good faith, intent to deceive, scienter, [and] honest mistake are all questions of fact.”). Whatever else may be said about Arthrex’s argument, the district court’s ruling and pronouncement could, at most, create a factual question, not an entitlement to a no-knowledge finding as a matter of law. But Arthrex does not request further factual adjudication, only a judgment as a matter of law of no indirect infringement for this period. We therefore reject Arthrex’s contention, without the need to consider more fully whether, as Arthrex suggests, liability for indirect infringement can turn successively off and on, based on the knowledge requirement, when a trial court reaches one conclusion but the conclusion is then reversed on appeal. 2. Arthrex challenges the district court’s basing of supplemental damages on the same definition of what products were acceptable non-infringing alternatives that the jury used to calculate lost profits, contending that the suture-anchor market has changed critically since the 2011 trial. Arthrex principally points to the emergence in 2010–2011 of so-called “all-suture” anchors. It argues that it was entitled to discovery on whether the emergence of all-suture anchors alters the required analysis of “what surgeons may find acceptable as non-infringing alternatives if Arthrex was no longer able to sell its BioSutureTak anchor.” Arthrex’s Br. at 55, 57. The evidence that Arthrex advances is not sufficient to make the district court’s reliance on the 2011 lostprofits analysis an abuse of discretion, even without SMITH & NEPHEW INCORPORATED v. ARTHREX, 17 INCORPORATED further discovery. The sales at issue were made to surgeons in 2011–13 who, despite the availability of allsuture anchors Arthrex touts as newly significant since 2010–11, chose the particular push-in Arthrex anchors at issue here. Lost-profits damages are awarded only for those sales. The question is what that particular group of surgeons would have chosen if the Arthrex suture anchors at issue had not been available. What those surgeons actually chose weighs heavily in answering that question. And the district court could readily conclude that a contrary answer is not suggested by the only evidence Arthrex advanced regarding all-suture anchors, namely, that surgeons as a whole, making purchases for a variety of surgeries, were increasingly choosing all-suture anchors over the type of suture anchors at issue here. Arthrex’s proffer regarding all-suture anchors thus did not preclude the district court from carrying forward the lost-profits calculation to award supplemental damages. Nor did Arthrex’s secondary challenge, i.e., that two “biocomposite” anchors—Arthrex’s BioComposite SutureTak and DePuy Mitek’s Gryphon P anchors—should have been included in the market-share calculations for the 2011–13 period. Arthrex’s Br. at 57. It is undisputed that, as shown by the discussion in S&N’s expert report, S&N’s damages calculation at trial excluded biocomposite anchors (such as Arthrex’s BioComposite SutureTak), which were on the market during the period covered by the trial. J.A. 31041, 35794, 36032. And it is undisputed that Arthrex never challenged the exclusion of biocomposite anchors at trial. In later opposing supplemental damages, Arthrex simply did not present a strong enough reason for the district court to conclude that newly available evidence required a different finding on this point from the one Arthrex did not challenge at trial. At best, Arthrex presents general evidence of growing popularity of biocomposite anchors, but that evidence does no more for Arthrex than its evidence regarding all-suture an18 SMITH & NEPHEW INCORPORATED v. ARTHREX, INCORPORATED chors. That evidence is insufficient for present purposes even aside from the serious question about whether the BioComposite SutureTak is actually non-infringing. See S&N’s Br. at 60. In short, Arthrex did not present evidence that required the district court to launch additional litigation on whether the calculation of supplemental damages had to depart from the calculation used for the lost-profits award. Without such evidence, the district court could properly rely on that calculation and bring it forward to the post-trial period.