Imperium IP Holdings (Cayman), Ltd.., v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., et al. (Supreme Court 2019)
QUESTION PRESENTED
This case implicates fundamental questions about the proper roles of the jury and the court. After a six-day trial, a jury found that Respondent Samsung willfully infringed Petitioner Imperium’s patent rights. In reaching that verdict, the jury found that Samsung had failed to carry its burden of proving by clear and convincing evidence that the relevant patent claims were invalid. Following post-trial proceedings, including an award of treble damages plus attorney’s fees in light of Samsung’s willful infringement and litigation misconduct, the district court entered judgment for over $22 million on the patent claims at issue.
The Federal Circuit reversed, however, holding that Samsung was entitled to judgment as a matter of law on invalidity because the jury was required to accept the purportedly credible, “unrebutted,” and “uncontradicted” testimony of Samsung’s paid expert. The court of appeals reached that holding only after performing its own assessment of Samsung’s expert’s credibility and ignoring numerous other facts that could have led a reasonable jury to discount the value of this witness’s testimony.
The question presented is
whether an appellate court may reverse a jury verdict based on its own view that expert testimony was credible, “unrebutted,” and “uncontradicted,” or instead whether the Seventh Amendment requires the jury to make determinations about credibility and the weight of the evidence in determining whether a party has properly carried its burden of proof.
Docs:
- Supreme Court Docket.
- Federal Circuit Non-precedential Decision (“We agree with Samsung [and disagree with the Jury and lower court Judge] that the only reasonable finding on this record is that the ’884 patent claims at issue here are invalid for anticipation.”)
This was no subjective 103, rather, a clear 102 without even an attempted rebuttal, which the Court held no reasonable jury [the usual test] should have ignored. The Fed. Cir. decision even cites from the patent owners own expert’s admission of that prior art patent teaching.
That’s what so silly about the cert question. The two “alternatives” aren’t mutually exclusive.
whether an appellate court may reverse a jury verdict based on its own view that expert testimony was credible, “unrebutted,” and “uncontradicted,”
Of course an appellate court can do that if, in fact, the testimony was unrebutted and uncontradicted and there is no reason on the record to believe that the testimony was not credible. That’s why jury decision are appealable.
whether the Seventh Amendment requires the jury to make determinations about credibility and the weight of the evidence in determining whether a party has properly carried its burden of proof
Of course juries are required to do that. But when it’s clear that it didn’t happen or the jury must have ignored something or behaved unreasonably, the verdict can be thrown out.
In a just world, the attorney who wrote this cert question would be sanctioned and disbarred. It’s amazing how many of these so-called “expert attorneys” with their oh-so-special Supreme Court bar membership are just incompetent b0ttom-feeders who will do and say literally anything. What a cessp-00-l.
Then again, we now apparently live in a world where even tenured professors are afraid to address basic facts about the manner in which claims are written in the U.S. and how that manner dictates the sort of logical analyses that are required to evaluate what those claims effectively protect. Ready to grow up, Dennis Crouch and Jason Rantanen? Anytime is a good time but sooner is better than later.
Patentee will get nowhere with this silliness.
I always wonder who pays for this cr@p. And why.
Hedge funds.
One would think that a hedge fund paying for patent litigation would hire independent patent expertise on “when to hold em and when to fold em.”
One would think that a hedge fund paying for patent litigation would hire independent patent expertise
News flash: the people behind the curtains at these “hedge funds” aren’t very good judges about what constitutes “expertise” in patent law, nor are they good at much of anything besides playing con games, gambling, doing drugs, and finding expensive “p*ssy” (as Perznit R@pey McMango would say). I mean, have you ever hung out with any of these hedge fund d00shbr0s for more than ten minutes? They’re creeps.
Dyk, O’Malley, Taranto – by Taranto.
Taranto has to be the most biased, unethical judge on the CAFC. The problem is that he is probably the smartest too.
NightWriter….you seem to forget that Newman is still on the court when you are considering the smartest Judge on the CAFC. (She still runs rings around her colleagues and remains sharp as a tack.)
Newman tries to apply the law and understands patent law. But in terms of raw horsepower Taranto is way ahead of Newman.
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