After precluding certain testimony by Plaintiff’s damages expert in January, the court now rules against the remainder of his damages opinion of $150 to $300 million “or more.” The court found that the expert’s reasonable royalty opinion was unreliable, being based upon a single litigation settlement that (a) occurred 5 years after the hypothetical negotiation, (b) pertained to a different patent, and (c) accompanied no analysis of comparability.
The court notes that “AVM does not cite to a single case where any court permitted a damages claim to be based on a single settlement agreement for a comparable technology.”
The court also suggests some pertinent questions that Plaintiff’s expert could have addressed in an analysis of comparability:
• What was the amount of damages ultimately sought in the litigation?
• Would the issue of willfulness have been tried, with the possibility of treble damages?
• Had sanctions been imposed, as in LaserDynamics v. Quanta?
• Did the agreement have provisions that would differ from the present case? (Here, the later settlement included a provision requiring dispute resolution before filing further patent suits.)
The court concludes: “Even assuming that a single settlement agreement on a comparable technology could be the basis for a reliable conclusion, which the Court doubts, Evans’ analysis falls far short of what would be necessary for such a conclusion.”
In a follow-up ruling, the court ruled in favor of Intel that there was no evidence of any damages.
AVM Technologies LLC v. Intel Corporation, 1-10-cv-00610 (D. DE, February 21, 2013, Opinion) (Andrews)
AVM Technologies LLC v. Intel Corporation, 1-10-cv-00610 (D. DE, March 29, 2013, Order) (Andrews)