It’s been a rough week for manufacturing giant 3M Co. On Friday a Minnesota judge ruled the company had waited too long to bring an otherwise meritorious disqualification motion against Covington & Burling in an environmental case. Then on Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a $26 million antitrust award against the company based on fraud before U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
The Federal Circuit affirmed a New Jersey federal judge and jury’s separate findings that 3M learned about a new design for a filter product from a competitor, then undertook “an intentional scheme” led by an in-house attorney to “paper over” that problem while obtaining its own patent. 3M eventually sued the competitor for patent infringement. On Wednesday, the Federal Circuit upheld the award of $7.7 million in attorney fees to the competitor—trebled under antitrust law—as the primary measure of damages.
