Preparation of Consolidated Financial Statements Does Not Demonstrate That Profits of Subsidiary Inexorably Flow to Parent Patentee​

The court granted defendant's motion for summary judgment that plaintiff was not entitled to damages based on its subsidiary's lost profits and rejected plaintiff's inexorable flow argument. "The Federal Circuit has not adopted the 'inexorable flow' theory. . . . The Federal Circuit has 'long recognized that the lost profits must come from the lost sales of a product or service the patentee itself was selling.' Here, [plaintiff's] claim for lost profits includes the lost profits of its wholly owned subsidiary. . . . That [plaintiff] consolidates its financial statements does not demonstrate an inexorable flow of profits from [the subsidiary] to [plaintiff], even if the inexorable flow theory provides a permissible basis to award lost profits."

Select Comfort Corporation v. Tempur Sealy International, Inc., 0-14-cv-00245 (MND July 12, 2017, Order) (Ericksen, USDJ)