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

Trading Techs. Int’l, Inc. v. eSpeed, Inc., No. 2008-1392 & 1393 (Fed. Cir.).*

As Judge Moran predicted, the parties have appealed this case to the Federal Circuit.* The parties’ appeals were consolidated, leaving a single appeal with a substantial number of issues. The great, new Patent Appeal Tracer* reported that plaintiff Trading Technologies (“TT”) is appealing at least the following decisions (click here to read Tracer’s post on the cross-appeals):

Claim constructions, specifically constructions of "static price axis" and "order entry region"  (click here and here and here for the Blog’s posts regarding claim construction opinions);

• Summary judgment of noninfringement of most of defendant eSpeed’s software packages, including the following titles: Dual Dynamic, eSpeedometer, and modified eSpeedometer programs (click here for the Blog’s post regarding this opinion);
  
• Partial summary judgment for TT regarding prior use (click here for the Blog’s post regarding this opinion); and
  
• Judgment as a matter of law overturning the jury’s willfulness finding (click here for the Blog’s post regarding this opinion).

And eSpeed is appealing, at least, the following decisions:

• The permanent injunction regarding certain of eSpeed’s software packages (click here for the Blog’s post regarding the Court’s permanent injunction).

* Thanks to Patent Tracer for linking to the Blog’s TT v. eSpeed coverage. Click here to read much more about this case in the Blog’s archives.

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Trading Techs. Int’l, Inc. v. eSpeed, Inc., No. 04 C 5312, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Feb. 5, 2008) (Moran, Sen. J.).*

Judge Moran denied defendants’ Fed. R. Civ. P. 59 motion for a new trial of damages on the condition that plaintiff Trading Technologies (“TT”) accepted a remittitur of defendant eSpeed’s portion of the damages. After a trial, the jury returned a verdict for TT and awarded $3.5M in compensatory damages, split $2M against defendant Ecco and $1.5M against defendant eSpeed. At trial, TT’s damages model was based upon a proposed reasonable royalty of between $.15 and $.25 per trade and a total of approximately 18M to 23M trades for a damages range of about $3.5M to $4.6M. TT argued that the apportionment of damages was irrelevant because the total award was within the argued range and because eSpeed purchased Ecco and, therefore, would be paying the full amount. But the Court noted that Ecco’s award would be paid from an escrow account set up for because of TT’s patent claims when eSpeed purchased Ecco. Additionally, eSpeed’s $1.5M judgment was well beyond the highest award that could be supported by TT’s evidence. The evidence showed that during the relevant time, eSpeed completed approximately 2.1M trades. Even at $.25 per trade, TT’s highest proposed royalty, the possible damages were only $539,468. The Court, therefore, offered TT a remittitur of $539,468 or a new trial on damages.

The Court also awarded TT prejudgment interest set at the average prime rate for the period compounded monthly, because TT collected license fees monthly.

* Click here to read much more about this case in the Blog’s archives and click here for a copy of this opinion.

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Glenayre Elecs., Inc. v. Jackson, No. 02 C 0256, 2007 WL 2492105 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 30, 2007) (Leinenweber, J.).

Judge Leinenweber denied a motion for an injunction against declaratory judgment defendant Jackson (“Jackson”) making arguments in a related malpractice case against Jackson’s prior counsel Niro Scavone (“Niro”). In the original case, the jury returned a verdict for Jackson finding direct infringement and awarding him $12.1M. Jackson accepted a remittitur of $2.65M which the Court ruled prevented Jackson from pursuing further indirect infringement claims against declaratory judgment plaintiff Glenayre Electronics (“Glenayre”). Jackson appealed the issue to the Federal Circuit which upheld the Court’s decision. Jackson then sued his Niro in Illinois state court for, among other things, malpractice. Niro brought the instant motion in this case seeking to prevent Jackson from taking any position that contradicts the principle that the $2.65M remittitur represented all possible damages in the case. Because Niro had already moved the state court to prevent the arguments at issue, the Court had to determine whether the relitigation exception applied to allow the Court to reconsider the decision rendered by the state court. The Court held that the exception did not apply for two reasons. First, Counsel showed no “equitable entitlement” to the relitigation exception. Counsel may still appeal the state court decision through the state appellate system. And the costs of litigation are not a sufficient equitable consideration. Second, the characterization of the Court’s ruling was incorrect. The Court held only that once he accepted the remittitur, Jackson was not entitled to any further damages for the infringement. The Court did not hold that Jackson had never been entitled to more than the $2.65M remittitur.

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