A jury in the Eastern District of Texas on Friday morning delivered to a company that accused Samsung Electronics of infringing four patents exactly what it asked for: $445.5 million in damages for the telecommunication giant’s willful use of the technology it hadn’t paid for.
The jury was selected Oct. 3, a couple of days after the government shutdown began, and heard four days of testimony before beginning deliberations late Thursday. The eight-member panel returned its unanimous verdict in favor of Collision Communications around 9:30 a.m.
Brad Caldwell of Caldwell Cassady & Curry, who represented Collision, said the damages awarded were to-the-dollar what he asked the jury to award to his clients.
“We had a really great client,” he told The Lawbook Friday morning. “We had really brilliant witnesses on the technical side and business side, and I’m proud to be able to represent them.”
The technology covered by the patents-in-suit reduces signal interference in cellular network communications, and the idea was conceived of in the early 2000s by inventors and engineers at defense contractor BAE Systems, which intended to sell the tool to the military.
But when the military decided not to implement the technology and recognizing that its ability to prevent signal interference and make phones on busy networks more reliable had commercial value, BAE partnered with Collision to try to take the product to the civilian market.
Collision, which also hired inventors and engineers from BAE, acquired the patents in 2010 and 2011 and approached major companies such as Nokia, Ericsson and Samsung.
“And Samsung was really falling all over itself for this technology during these discussions,” Caldwell said, referencing internal communications jurors were shown during trial. “They thought it was amazing.”
Extensive discussions, which included running several simulations using the technology, took place between Samsung and Collision from 2011 through 2014.
At the time, Caldwell said, his clients weren’t sure why communications with Samsung went cold and why the business deal didn’t go through.
“Our guys felt maybe they weren’t meeting [Samsung’s] goals and that’s why they’re not moving forward,” Caldwell said. “But in truth, that’s just what they were saying to us to sort of slow play Collision. But internally, Samsung was like ‘We love this, but we don’t want to pay for it.’”
The truth, and vindication, came out in open court, Caldwell said, as his client read through Samsung’s internal email communications where they discussed their desire to use the technology and not pay for it. One email raised the prospect of getting a Korean university to develop a similar technology, Caldwell said.
“Sitting at counsel table and watching our client read, for the first time, what Samsung was saying about him and his company 12 years ago, that was a bit unique and, kind of moving, I would say, because you see them literally saying ‘Wait if their stuff is good why don’t we work with them?’ and someone else says ‘If we do that we’ll have to pay for it.’”
Samsung had argued it hadn’t infringed the technology and also that the patents were invalid. The company also argued that if the jury did find infringement, damages should be $10 million or less. The jury rejected those arguments, awarding the damages to Collision in the form of a running royalty.
Samsung’s lead lawyer, Sean S. Pak of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Friday afternoon.
Caldwell said he wasn’t surprised by the finding that the infringement was willful in this case, noting the “degree,” “depth,” and “extent of discussions and analysis between Collision and Samsung.”
During the weeklong trial before U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap, a possible delay in proceedings because of the shutdown was never discussed, Caldwell said.
“Judge Gilstrap has such a busy docket, he has so many things that ultimately might get to trial that he’s not going to miss any opportunity he has when there’s a jury coming in,” he said.
Collision is also represented by Chris Stewart, Justin Nemunaitis, Aisha Mahmood Haley, John Summers, Seth Reich, James Smith, James Yang, Alexander Gras and Xu Zhou of Caldwell Cassady & Curry and Andrea Fair of Miller Fair Henry.
Samsung is also represented by Victoria Maroulis, Patrick Stafford, Olga Slobodyanyuk, Nagendra Setty, Kevin Hardy, Joseph Reed, John McKee, Brice Lynch, Brian E. Mack, Brady Huynh and Austin Buscher of Quinn Emanuel.
The case number is 2:23-cv-00587.