Monday, September 20, 2010

Domestic Offer for Foreign Sale is not an Act of Infringement

Applying Transocean Offshore Deepwater Drilling, Inc. v. Maersk Contractors USA, Inc., --- F.3d ---- (Fed. Cir. 2010), the court granted defendant's motion for judgment as matter of law that plaintiff was not entitled to lost profits for foreign sales arising out of domestic offers for sale and the judge reduced the damages award by $5.421 million. "[I]t is undisputed that the devices implicated by [defendant's] motion were manufactured, sold, and delivered abroad while the offers for those devices were made in the U.S. . . . [T]here is no dispute that the devices were manufactured in Europe and distributed exclusively to Venezuela, Brazil, and Canada without touching U.S. soil. . . . [T]he jury should not have considered those offers for sale as part of its determination of infringement and damages."

Input/Output, Inc. et al v. Sercel, Inc., 5-06-cv-00236 (TXED September 16, 2010, Order) (Folsom, J.)

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