A California federal judge has set aside a $105 million award to electronics component maker Power Integrations Inc. based on a recent appellate court ruling on royalty damages. The judge’s ruling referred to the Federal Circuit’s September ruling in Virnetx Inc. v. Cisco Systems. That ruling vacated a jury’s damages because the patent holder did not apportion damages only to the patented features of the product.
Erik Belt, an intellectual property lawyer not involved in the case, said that the Virnetx ruling built on the court’s previous case law.
“You have to base the damages on the actual thing that’s patented,” said Belt, a partner in McCarter & English’s Boston office. “You’re going to see more money being spent by the parties on economists or accountants or damages experts to do more than they had been doing before,” to prove damages.