Search results for

More than 10,000 trade mark practitioners – a record – were in Orlando for the INTA Annual Meeting this week. Managing IP was there, reporting from the sessions and publishing interviews with in-house counsel, IP office officials and INTA executive team members

The International Trade Commission will hold an oral hearing in Certain Carbon and Alloy Steel in April. This is only the second oral argument granted in nearly 10 years, following one in November last year

The Federal Circuit has affirmed the PTAB’s invalidation of claims of three patents involved in the WesternGeco v Ion case at the Supreme Court

The Federal Circuit last week affirmed a district court decision in favour of Siemens Medical Solutions, and said that a jury had erred in reducing the amount of damages owed the company

In our June, 2007 briefing, we explained that patent trials are almost always open to the public. Of course, trials are the culmination of many months, sometimes years, of pre-trial discovery, including the production of documents containing confidential information and the deposition of witnesses. While it's generally known that such pre-trial discovery is not open to the public, a question often asked, particularly by non-US entities involved in US litigation, is whether the opposing in-house counsel will have access to the confidential documents produced and deposition testimony given in the litigation.

Depositions are not usually compared to sporting events, although some readers may think that comparing a deposition to a boxing match would be appropriate. In reality, a deposition could be compared to a tennis match because in both, once the event begins, no coaching is allowed. Indeed, in US patent litigation (and other litigation), the rule is that "objections should be stated as briefly as possible" and should not be "designed to coach or suggest an answer to the witness or otherwise to interfere with questioning of the witness by opposing counsel" (Collins v Int'l Dairy Queen, Inc, No CIV A 94-95-4MACWDO, 1998 WL 293314, *1 (MD Ga June 14 1998)). The lawyer defending the witness simply is not permitted to "make any objections or statements which might suggest an answer to a witness or which are intended to communicate caution to a witness with respect to a particular question" nor should the lawyer "attempt[] to suggest to the witness any particular or desired response" (Id at *3; see also Wilson v Sundstrand Corp, Nos 99 C 6944, 2003 WL 22012673, *5 (ND Ill August 25 2003) which held that counsel's objections suggesting answers were improper)). As the Court succinctly stated in Heriaud v Ryder Transp. Servs, No 03 C 0289, 2005 WL 2230199, *8 (ND Ill September 8 2005), when a lawyer is "trying to obstruct his adversaries' ability to obtain answers to their questions, and ... trying to coach his [witness] to answer-or not answer-questions ... [h]is behavior violates every rule of discovery that broaches the subject".

By statute, a patent holder, if successful in litigation, is awarded "damages adequate to compensate for the infringement but in no event less than a reasonable royalty for the use made of the invention." (35 USC §284 [2006]; Georgia-Pacific Corp v US Plywood Corp [SDNY 1970]). A reasonable royalty calculation involves determination of the royalty rate and royalty base.

We provide a rundown of Managing IP’s news and analysis coverage from the week, and review what’s been happening elsewhere in IP

Litigation team says pre-trial work and a Section 101 defence helped significantly limit damages payable by ride-sharing firm Lyft in patent case

Lawyers and corporate leaders at INTA’s Business of M&A conference in New York discussed how cross-practice collaboration and early in-house involvement can help deals