Almost One Billion Dollar Verdict in U.S. Trade Secret Case

Wow!  That is quite a verdict.  A Wisconsin jury awarded $240 million in compensatory damages and $700 million in punitive damages for seven claims, including misappropriation of trade secrets and related claims.  That is a huge verdict.  The defendant is an Indian company, Tata Consultancies.  The Insurance Journal reports on the verdict, here.  Patently-O discusses the verdict, here.  Will a district in Wisconsin become the new Eastern District of Texas for trade secret claims post-Defend Trade Secrets Act?  For more information about the facts of the case, see here and here.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fawlty Towers - TV Format Licensing

Image
This blogger has happy memories as a teenager of family TV viewing of the BBC comedy series Fawlty Towers . Even today his generation will often - generally after a few beers - recall hilarious moments and catch phrases ("I can speak English. I learn it from a book") from the show. Even his children love the show as its humour is timeless. So it's not surprising that an Australian-based dinner show Faulty Towers is, according to the Australian Sydney Morning Herald , a great hit with tickets costing up to AUD 159. A UK run in the summer will see tickets of GBP 59. John Cleese has tweeted that he is amazed about the profits being made from the show, which has been running for a number of years. Cleese seems to be looking for a licensing deal as he's added that there is nothing wrong with the show. The question is - how strong is his licensing rights? The formats of TV shows are notoriously difficult to protect with different courts in different countries seemingly c...
Read more

"Patent holdup" allegations encourage SEP free-riders

Image
Despite many years of speculation and recently adjusted claims, there is no empirical support for the theory of “patent holdup.” Various eminent experts refute allegations of systemic “patent holdup.” It is likely that “patent holdup” has not occurred in the context of standards and licensing of standards essential patents (SEPs) because of the fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) licensing contracts and available recourse to the courts have ensured that licensees cannot be forced to pay “excessive” licensing fees.  Free Riders Abound “Patent holdout,” which is also sometimes referred to as “reverse holdup,“ rather than “patent holdup” may instead be a prevalent problem; although calls for remedies have largely been in response to “patent holdup” allegations. Beguiled courts, antitrust authorities, government policy makers and even a standards development organisation (SDO ) are tipping the scales in favour of “patent holdout” by infringing implementers of SEPs. This is...
Read more

Do not Count on Accuracy in Third-Party Patent-Essentiality Determinations

Image
The Roadmap onStandard Essential Patents for a European Digitalised Economy from the European Commission’s DG Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG Growth) sets out how it believes increasing transparency on standard-essential patents and its other objectives with SEPs and FRAND licensing might be achieved.  A study report commissioned by DG Growth in support of this initiative on Transparency, Predictability and Efficiency of SSO-based Standardization and SEP Licensing (the CRA report) proposes, among various other recommendations, that declared patents and patent applications should be centrally assessed by standard-setting organizations or by the European Patent Office to determine whether they are actually essential to standards including those developed by ETSI for 3G, 4G and 5G. A path to price regulation This intervention is unwarranted and results would be unreliable. It would introduce various inaccuracies with significant subjectivity, biases and wou...
Read more