A federal judge in Texas has excluded the royalty testimony of a patent plaintiff’s damages expert, finding that the expert’s analysis assumed that two defendants would have agreed to unreasonable royalties.
On July 16, in WesternGeco v. ION Geophysical Corp., Judge Keith Ellison of the Southern District of Texas partially granted a motion by ION and a co-defendant to exclude the testimony of a damages expert for the plaintiff. Ellison granted the motion to exclude the expert’s testimony on the so-called reasonable royalty that ION should pay if WesternGeco’s patents are found to be valid and infringed. But Ellison denied the motion to exclude the expert’s testimony on WesternGeco’s lost profits from the defendants’ alleged infringement.
