Conjoint Survey Excluded for Failure to Determine Economic Value of Patented Features Relative to Non-Patented Features

​ The court granted defendant's motion to exclude the testimony of plaintiffs' damages expert regarding his choice-based conjoint consumer survey as unreliable. "[The expert's] study did not attempt to determine a real world price for the four patented features, and did not endeavor to value any non-patented features or to determine the value of the four patented features relative to the multitude of non-patented features in the accused devices. . . . The only tested features in [the expert's] study, apart from the unimportant language distracter, were the four patented features. Thus, the only 'value' expressed in [his] economic values is the relative value of the four asserted patented features to one another. [The expert's] conjoint results express nothing about the value of the four patented features relative to other important features of the accused devices. . . . [T]he Court will exclude [the expert's] conjoint study and testimony completely for a lack of relevance to the facts of the case based on [plaintiffs'] concession that [the expert's] conjoint study is unrelated to his other damage methodologies."

Visteon Global Technologies, Inc., et. al. v. Garmin International, Inc., 2-10-cv-10578 (MIED October 14, 2016, Order) (Borman, USDJ)