In Re Hayes Microcomputer Products, Inc. Patent Litigation

766 F. Supp. 818, 1991 WL 107262
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. California
DecidedApril 23, 1991
DocketC 84-4882 (SC), C 84-6315 (SC), C 88-0066 (SC), C 88-1444 (SC) and C 88-2901 (SC)
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 766 F. Supp. 818 (In Re Hayes Microcomputer Products, Inc. Patent Litigation) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In Re Hayes Microcomputer Products, Inc. Patent Litigation, 766 F. Supp. 818, 1991 WL 107262 (N.D. Cal. 1991).

Opinion

JUDGMENT AND ORDER

CONTI, District Judge.

This case involves a patent infringement dispute between Hayes Microcomputer Products, Inc. (“Hayes” or “plaintiff”) and Everex Systems, Inc. (“Everex”), Ven-Tel, Inc. (“Ven-Tel”), and Omnitel, Inc. (“Omnitel”) (collectively “defendants”). This order decides the following motions currently before the court:

(1) Defendants’ Motions for Judgment Notwithstanding the Verdict;
(2) Hayes’ Motion for Permanent Injunction;
(3) Defendants’ Motion for Stay of Injunction;
(4) Hayes’ Motion for Prejudgment Interest;
(5) Hayes’ Motion for Enhancement of Damages and Attorney Fees;
(6) Hayes’ Motion for Accounting of Infringing Sales Subsequent to December 31, 1990 and for Entry of Supplemental Judgment; and
*821 (7) Hayes’ Motion for Rule 11 Sanctions.

I. BACKGROUND

This case arose out of a patent, relating to computer modems, issued to Dale Heatherington on October 22, 1985, and assigned to Hayes. On January 25, 1991, following a lengthy trial before this court and a jury, the jury returned a verdict in favor of Hayes and against all three defendants. The jury found that U.S. Letters Patent 4,549,302 is valid and that each defendant had willfully infringed it. The jury awarded as damages to Hayes a reasonable royalty of 1.75% of each defendant’s net sales of infringing products.

Specifically, the jury awarded Hayes damages from each defendant as follows: Everex: $1,614,839.50; Ven-Tel: $1,010,-116.50; and Omnitel: $884,854.92. On January 28, 1991, the court entered judgment pursuant to these findings, taxed costs against defendants under Local Rule 265, and specifically reserved judgment on the issues of injunction, prejudgment interest, enhancement of damages, and attorney fees. Subsequently, defendants filed motions for judgment notwithstanding the verdict and to stay the injunction pending appeal and Hayes moved for sanctions under Fed.R.Civ.P. 11 and for accounting of infringing sales subsequent to December 31, 1990 and entry of supplemental judgment. The court now addresses each of these issues in turn.

II. DISCUSSION

A. Defendants’ Motions for Judgment Notwithstanding the Verdict

Defendants have moved, under Fed.R. Civ.P. 50(b), for judgment notwithstanding the verdict (“JNOV”) on virtually every issue conceivably decided by the jury. Although the three defendants have presented their asserted grounds for JNOV in a number of separate motions, the court will rule on all motions together.

At the outset, the court stresses the heavy burden that defendants must carry in order to sustain their motions for JNOV. In this circuit, 1 a court is bound to deny a JNOV motion, “unless the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the prevailing party [at trial], permits only one reasonable conclusion [i.e., against the jury’s verdict], Cordero v. CIA Mexicana De Aviacion, S.A., 681 F.2d 669, 672 (9th Cir.1982).

Put another way, JNOV should not be granted unless:

(1) there is such a complete absence of evidence supporting the verdict that the jury’s findings could only have been the result of sheer surmise and conjecture, or (2) there is such an overwhelming amount of evidence in favor of the movant that reasonable and fair minded men could not arrive at a verdict against him.

Jamesbury Corp. v. Litton Indus. Products, Inc., 756 F.2d 1556, 1558 (Fed.Cir. 1985) (quoting Mattivi v. South African Marine Corp., 618 F.2d 163, 168 (2d Cir. 1980)

Specifically, in patent cases, a trial judge: must consider all the evidence in a light most favorable to the nonmover, must draw reasonable inferences favorable to the nonmover, must not determine credibility of witnesses, and must not substitute its choice for that of the jury between conflicting elements in the evidence. Following these guidelines, the court determines whether the evidence so viewed constitutes “substantial evidence” in support of the jury’s findings and, if so, whether those findings can support the legal conclusions necessarily drawn by the jury.

Perkin-Elmer Corp. v. Computervision Corp., 732 F.2d 888, 893 (Fed.Cir.1984) (citations omitted).

“Substantial evidence,” moreover, is “such relevant evidence from the record taken as a whole as might be accepted by a reasonable mind as adequate to support the *822 finding under review.” Id. Defendants carry a particularly heavy burden on the issue of validity of the patent because, on that issue, “a patentee need submit no evidence in support of a conclusion of validity by a ... jury.” Orthokinetics, Inc. v. Safety Travel Chairs, Inc., 806 F.2d 1565, 1570 (Fed.Cir.1986) (emphasis in original).

The court presided over a lengthy jury trial in this matter, in which plaintiff and all three defendants presented voluminous testimony, including that of expert witnesses. After a careful review of the evidence presented to the jury at trial and the legal arguments presented in the parties’ JNOV briefs, the court finds that the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to Hayes, clearly permits the “reasonable conclusion” that the jury made. Because the court finds that the evidence so viewed constitutes “substantial” evidence in support of the jury’s findings, and that those findings support the legal conclusions necessarily drawn by the jury, the court will not overrule the jury in this case. Consequently, the court hereby DENIES the motions for judgment notwithstanding the verdict of all defendants on all grounds.

B. Hayes’ Motion for Permanent Injunction

Under 35 U.S.C. § 283, the court is authorized to issue an injunction “to prevent the violation of any right secured by patent, on such terms as the court deems reasonable.” This statute makes the grant or denial of an injunction by the court discretionary within the facts of each case. See, e.g., Windsurfing Int’l, Inc. v. AMF, Inc., 782 F.2d 995, 1002 (Fed.Cir.1986).

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