EcoFactor v. Google is the Federal Circuit’s first en banc utility patent case in years. The court will beholding oral arguments this morning, starting at 10:00 am Eastern.
- Listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwEZ2MlyOv8
- Ginger Anders (Google) will face off against Brian Ledahl (EcoFactor) before 10 members of the Court of Appeal. (Judge Newman is being excluded, and Judge Cunningham is not on the roster.)
The case generally relates to a district court judge’s gatekeeper role to prevent the Jury from hearing less-than-stellar expert testimony. Early briefing in the en banc case was a bit scatter shot, and the court released an precedential statement reiterating that the rehearing en banc is “limited to addressing the district court’s adherence to Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993), in its allowance of testimony from EcoFactor’s damages expert assigning a per-unit royalty rate to the three licenses in evidence in this case.”