Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Biotech / Medical : VD's Model Portfolio & Discussion Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Epics who wrote (6444)	2/10/1999 11:16:00 AM
From: RCMac	Respond to of 9719

Epics & Rman, Under section 284 of the patent law, for an infringement "the court shall award . . . damages adequate to compensate for the infringement but in no event less than a reasonable royalty" plus interest, costs, and "in exceptional cases" attorney fees. In addition, "the court may increase the damages up to three times the" damages assessed by the jury. Surprisingly, the statute doesn't set out a standard for the judge to follow in deciding whether to double or treble the actual damages. I understand that the judicial decisions under the statute often grant such an increase where there has been egregious cheating-type behavior on the part of the infringer, either in its operations - "willful" infringement, etc. - or in the conduct of the litigation (lying in depositions, withholding documents from discovery, etc.). (I'm a lawyer, not a patent lawyer, although I know a little about IP law; I also know that "a little" is usually dangerous, so I usually go talk to the patent lawyer in the office next to mine when I have a patent question, and the summary of the case law in the prior paragraph is a paraphrase of what he told me.) The GSII news release, biz.yahoo.com , goes out of its way to point out that in the prior case the court "found that [GDT] had obtained this patent through inequitable conduct by misrepresenting material facts to the Patent Office. The Court therefore found this patent to be unenforceable . . . ." This does sound like GSII is expecting to ask for a doubling or trebling of the damages, and thinks it has a reasonable chance of success. --RCM