U.S. Supreme Court To Decide Whether Patent-Holders Can Recover Foreign Lost Profits
Monday, January 15, 2018

On January 12, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in WesternGeco L.L.C. v. ION Geophysical Corp., No. 16-1011.  The case stems from an opinion of the Federal Circuit in which a divided panel affirmed a jury’s verdict of patent infringement and its damages award of $12.5 million in reasonable royalties but reversed the jury’s additional award of $93.4 million in profits that would have been earned on contracts to be performed outside of U.S. territory.  In December, the U.S. government filed a brief arguing that there is no bar to recovering “foreign lost profits attributable to domestic acts of patent infringement” if the damages were proximately caused by the infringement and that the Federal Circuit panel’s decision is not supported by Supreme Court precedent.  For more details, see our prior post (here).

 

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