Federal Judiciary

Datatreasury - order resolving postjudgment motions

By Michael C. Smith

There were five separate orders (that I made it through, anyway - I may have dropped one carrying the stack back to my office, metaphorically speaking) resolving the plethora of postjudgment motions in this case, which resulted in a plaintiff's verdict of $26 million back in March.  To make it short (because life's too short to have to summarize those rulings in detail) Judge Folsom denied exceptional case status but did enhance the damages $26 million (100%).  He granted one defendant's renewed JMOL of noninfringement finding as a matter of law that it wasn't liable for joint infringement as a servant of an infringing master (or something like that.  Very BMC/Muniauction - ish stuff here if you're into that sort of thing).

There was an interesting motion to strike dealing with litigation-induced license defenses that was denied, as was a request to use a less than prime interest rate.  Of more interest (and utility) the Court also set aside the jury's finding of infringement with respect to one claim because he found that the Plaintiff's expert's opinions were outside the Court's claims construction, and thus "as a matter of law, cannot support the jury's verdict."  Good to know.

Full post as published by Eastern District of Texas Federal Court Practice on September 29, 2010 (boomark / email).