When The Am Law Litigation Daily featured Paul Hayes of Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo as its Litigator of the Week last April, after he won a $388 million patent infringement verdict against Microsoft, we warned that he’d better not start spending his contingency fee yet. Microsoft, we noted, has an unbelievably impressive track record when it comes to overturning adverse jury verdicts.
That record is now more impressive than ever, at the expense of Hayes and his client, Irvine, Calif.-based Uniloc USA. On Tuesday, in a thorough, 66-page ruling, Rhode Island federal district court Judge William Smith ruled that, as a matter of law, Microsoft did not infringe Uniloc’s patent on a method of limiting unlicensed use of software through casual copying. He vacated the $388 million jury verdict and entered judgment for Microsoft, which was represented at trial and in post-trial briefing by a Fish & Richardson team led by Frank Scherkenbach.
