Oil and gas companies routinely pay tens of millions of dollars for high-resolution images of hidden crude reservoirs under the ocean floor. As a result, competition is fierce among the marine seismic surveying companies that specialize in producing such images, and they’re constantly trying to improve the accuracy of their surveys. A jury has now found that one company, Ion Geophysical Corp., tried to take shortcuts in its R&D and willfully infringed four patents belong to rival WesternGeco Ltd.
A federal jury in Houston returned a verdict on Aug. 16 that Ion willfully infringed four patents relating to geological analysis owned by the WesternGeco, a unit of Schlumberger Limited, the world’s largest oilfield services company. The jurors awarded WesternGeco $93.4 million in lost profits and $12.5 million in reasonable royalties. The verdict is a resounding win for Schlumberger’s lawyers at Kirkland & Ellis, who were led by Washington, D.C., partner Gregg LoCascio.
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