Chicago IP Attorney & Lawyer : R. David Donoghue : Chicago IP Litigation Blog

Cement-Lock v. Gas Tech. Institute, No. 05 C 0018 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 11, 2007) (Pallmeyer, J.).

Judge Pallmeyer presided over a jury trial resulting in a verdict for plaintiffs Cement-Lock LLC and Alderman Richard Mell on behalf of Cement-Lock Group (collectively "CLG") on various RICO and breach of fiduciary duty claims.  The jury awarded CLG $15M in damages.  The jury also returned a verdict for defendants on CLG's trademark infringement and Illinois Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act claims.  Click here for Judge Pallmeyer's Order entering the verdict and here for the jury instructions (Count IX is the trademark infringement count and Count XI is the Illinois Deceptive Trade Practices Act count).

This was a dispute over the control and use of Cement–Lock technology (the “Technology”) which decontaminated certain waste products and used the decontaminated waste as a beneficial cement additive. CLG asserted various IP claims, including Lanham Act unfair competition, deceptive trade practices and trademark infringement. CLG alleged that defendants permitted defendant Gas Technology Institute (“GTI”) to secure funding for Technology-related activities, despite defendants’ knowledge that GTI had no license to use the Technology and kept knowledge of the funding from CLG. GTI also allegedly claimed to own and have developed the Technology.

For more about this case and the verdict, check out:

• The Blog's archives; and
  
  
• The Chicago Sun-Times.
  

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The Northern District has posted the Seventh Circuit's new proposed pattern jury instructions for patent cases on its website -- click here for a copy.  The instructions include all of the recent revisions to the patent laws, including KSR and Seagate. The Seventh Circuit requested comments on the instructions be sent to:

Chief Judge Robert L. Miller, Jr.
robert_miller@innd.uscourts.gov
325 Robert A. Grant Federal Building
204 S. Main St.
South Bend, IN 46601

Comments will be accepted until April 1st.  Also, below is my list of IP jury instructions by Northern District judge, I am sure we will start to see some new ones soon in light of the turbulent 18 months patent law has had:

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RRK Holding Co. v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., No. 04 C 3944, 2007 WL 495254 (N.D. Ill. Feb. 14, 2007) (Coar, J.).

As promised last week, the jury instructions are now available -- click here for a copy.  Additionally, although the verdict form is not available electronically, the Court's minute order (click here for a copy) gave some additional detail.  The jury found for plaintiff RRK on each of eleven counts and awarded damages as follows:

Damages Award

RRK's Actual Losses	$11,664,105
Sears's Unjust Enrichment	$1,688,136
Punitive Damages	$8,011,344
Total Damages	$21,363,585

For more on this case, click here for the Blog's archives.

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I have already posted on the verdict generally, but the jury's completed verdict form is now available and provides some more detailed information -- click here for a copy.  The jury found infringement, either literal, contributory or induced, for every accused product on every asserted claim.  The $3.5M damages award was split $1.5M against eSpeed and $2M against Ecco.  And both eSpeed and Ecco were found to have willfully infringed the patents.

Additionally, click here for the final jury instructions.  Of particular interest, the willfulness instruction, at page 35, is likely one of the first that used the new objective recklessness standard from In re Seagate.

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Crafting proposed jury instructions is one of the first steps when preparing for trial.  And one of the first steps in drafting those instructions is looking for pattern or sample instructions that the court has previously used or endorsed.  In order to help speed that process, I am adding a new Blog feature.  I have gathered the jury instructions that each of the Northern District judges identify on their respective  web pages as either form or model instructions.  Most have general civil instructions and a few have specific sample instructions for various types of IP suits.

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