Intellectual Property offerings:
Patent Infringement
Trade Dress

Patent Infringement

The goal in a patent infringement case is to evaluate potential economic loss. When a particular feature of a product is important, it drives sales. The cost of development of that feature is protected through patenting and the intellectual property – the patent – is how a return on investment is realized.

The patent can be viewed as having multiple values, such as lost sales when a company has exclusive rights through a patent it holds, or lost revenues when the patent is made available through a license. We examine the value of the patent in sales or through licensing to find an equitable value.

Case Examples:

Patent Infringement, in the production of hip replacement parts. Defendants acknowledged infringement but maintained that the feature that they had replicated was not important to the sale of the product. We evaluated the importance of the characteristics of the product for choice by orthopedic surgeons. We determined the relative importance of features in two ways. First, we examined whether the surgeons spontaneously mentioned the feature as being important. Second, we provided a list of features for the device in question and determined how frequently the feature was chosen. From the relative frequency of choice of this feature, we were able to estimate loss to patent holder of sales and net revenues. Results of evaluation allowed both sides to move to quick settlement.

Patent Infringement and Trademark Confusion for sporting goods manufacturers. A company was acquiring previously used sporting goods, refurbishing the product in a way that ignored key design components (so the product was not up to original specs), relabeling the product with the labels of both the original manufacturer and the refurbisher, and offering the product at a discounted price with claims that the refurbished product performed as well as the original. Research showed that purchasers were confused regarding who was the manufacturer of the product being purchased, what the product was that they were purchasing vis-a-vis the design and construction, and what the performance characteristics of the refurbished product really were. Results of the evaluation forced a settlement and an agreement to cease misleading marketing of product.