Tag: SDCA

Qualcomm Inc. v Apple Inc. (Order, January 18, 2019)

In his 11 page order, Southern District of California Judge Sabraw addressed cross Daubert motions on Apple’s experts and Qualcomm’s experts, which in turn provide some general insight for damages experts.

For its part, Apple requested the court exclude Qualcomm’s damages expert (Dr. Kennedy*) and its survey expert (Dr. Prince). Judge Sabraw had provided an opinion a month earlier concerning surveys by Dr. Prince in a different matter, Wi-Lan v. Apple. Judge Sabraw drew analytic contrast between the two cases, however, noting that the survey analysis proffered in Qualcomm addressed fatal limitations advanced in the earlier Wi-Lan expert analysis.

Thus, while Apple took issue with specific formulation of the survey, Judge Sabraw concluded that the formulation spoke more to the survey’s “weight, not admissibility.”

These divergent outcomes concerning surveys from the same expert reveal the essential need for such experts to work closely with technical experts. The obvious precondition for a successful survey is to tie questions to relevant claims; but where those ties are reasonably established, Judge Sabraw’s formulation appears to acknowledge that some “hypothetical ideal survey” must not condemn a “real-world survey” that can otherwise afford some insight into the matter at hand. Rather, limitations of relevant “real-world surveys” can be heard, challenged & defended.

Turning next to Dr. Kennedy’s damages opinion, Apple argued that his “50-50” split was “untethered to the facts of the case.” Judge Sabraw, however, found otherwise:

We can imagine a circumstance where a different expert from an earlier era might advance a “50-50” split based solely on superficial invocation of the Nash Bargaining Solution. But what might otherwise appear as numerical recourse to a rule of thumb can, in fact, be an argued outcome grounded in the facts of the case. So, too, might a “25%” outcome… even if Goldscheider’s formulation no longer enjoys merit after Uniloc. That is to say, round numbers themselves need not be thrown out along with rules of thumb.

Dr. Kennedy’s opinion based upon the Prince survey results was deemed admissible. Dr. Kennedy’s controversial 50/50 profit split was grounded in enough facts of the matter to be allowed as well.

For its part, Qualcomm requested that the court exclude Apple’s damages expert, Dr. Prowse, for failure to establish the economic comparability of relied-upon licenses. A related question concerned whether Apple’s technical experts had done the minimum necessary to establish that the patents-in-suit were technically comparable to others the subject of Apple license agreements. Judge Sabraw agreed with Qualcomm that those technical experts’ opinions “are conclusory and do not meet the standard for technological comparability.”

Given failure to establish technological comparability, related damages opinions, too, must fail. Judge Sabraw offered, however, that Dr. Prowse did establish the necessary economic comparability between the relevant license agreements and a hypothetical license agreement.

Since Uniloc, and the abandonment of rules-of-thumb, the rigor demanded of damages analysis has increased. In response, and with the goal of grounding analysis in the facts of a case, damages experts must make increasing recourse to the analytic foundations established by technical experts and/or survey experts. This pair of cases (i.e., Qualcomm v. Apple and Wi-LAN v. Apple) reveals the multiplicity – and vulnerabilities – of such dependence.

(*These two cases involve experts with identical surnames: Dr. Patrick Kennedy is Qualcomm’s damages expert, while Mr. David Kennedy is Wi-Lan’s damages expert.)

Columbia Sportswear North America, Inc. v. Seirus Innovative Accessories, Inc. (Opinion April 17, 2018)

In yet another case, a judge has ruled that an appropriate prejudgment interest rate is the California statutory rate of 7%.

The case in question involved a design patent and an apparatus patent.  A jury found the apparatus patent invalid; however, it found the design patent infringed, and those claims not invalid.  As a result, the jury awarded the infringer’s profits to the plaintiff, Columbia Sportswear.

After trial and after judgment was rendered, Columbia Sportswear requested the California 7% statutory rate as prejudgment interest, as well as supplemental lost profits.  Judge Marco Hernandez from the Southern District of California awarded both, despite defendant Seirus’ arguments that awarding seven percent interest on top of profits would deprive it of more than it originally earned. The justification for the amount was as follows:

“Prejudgment interest removes the incentive to live off of the profits until caught.” This elegant formulation enjoys enormous economic and judicial leverage.

There is, however, a flip-side….

Court’s recourse to a 7% statutory rate set decades ago divorces compensation from the facts of a case, relies on a rate detached from current financial and economic reality, and we would argue is inappropriate for most awards.