Discussion Of Read Factors Not Mandatory For Enhanced Damages Determination

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed in part, reversed in part, vacated in part and remanded the district court's findings of definiteness, grant of absolute intervening rights, denial of enhanced damages, award of lost profits and grant of permanent injunction. Presidio Components, Inc. v. American Technical Ceramics Corp., Case Nos. 16-2607; -2650 (Fed. Cir., Nov. 21, 2017) (Dyk, J).

Presidio sued American Technical Ceramics (ATC) alleging infringement of a patent that claims a multilayer capacitor design and teaches a multilayer integrated network of capacitors electrically connected in series and in parallel. While the district court infringement suit was pending, ATC sought an ex parte re-examination of the asserted patent claims. Presidio amended the claims after the examiner rejected the claims as anticipated and obvious. The US Patent and Trademark Office issued a re-examination certificate amending certain claims at issue in the district court action. Thereafter, Presidio amended its complaint to assert these claims.

The district court granted ATC's motion for summary judgment on the affirmative defense of absolute intervening rights. After a jury trial, ATC was found to infringe and induce infringement of the asserted claims. The jury awarded Presidio more than $2 million in lost profit damages and also found that ATC's infringement was willful. The district court rejected ATC's contention that the asserted claims were indefinite and denied ATC's motion that Presidio had failed as a matter of law to prove lost profits. The district court also denied Presidio's motion for enhanced damages despite the jury's willful infringement finding, and entered a permanent injunction against ATC. ATC appealed the district court's indefiniteness ruling, lost profits award and permanent injunction. Presidio cross-appealed the district court's intervening rights ruling and denial of enhanced damages.

The Federal Circuit affirmed the district court's holding that the claims were not indefinite, finding that the method of measuring capacitance was sufficiently well known in the art and referenced in the patent. (See also BASF Corp. v. Johnson Matthey, Inc., in this issue of IP Update). The Court agreed with the district court's grant of absolute intervening rights, noting that a patentee is only entitled to infringement damages for the period following issuance of the re-examination certificate if an amendment during...