Federal juries in separate trials returned decisions Friday afternoon — about 13 minutes apart — slamming Samsung with a $303 million verdict for willfully infringing computer memory technology patents and finding Textron Innovations is owed $279 million from a company that infringed its drone-related patents.
Semiconductor manufacturer Netlist filed suit against Samsung Electronics America and Samsung Electronics Co. in December 2021, alleging the company had continued to use products that infringed its computer memory technology patents after a license agreement expired in 2020.
The jury in U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap’s courtroom heard five days of testimony and deliberated for about three hours before siding with Netlist on all claims.
McKool Smith principal Jennifer Truelove, who represented Netlist, issued a statement praising the jury’s finding that the patents had been willfully infringed.
“Our client is grateful that the jury recognized the value of their technology and that they will receive the compensation they deserve,” she said.
The jury awarded $33.1 million in damages for infringement of one patent, $147.2 million for the infringement of two other patents and $122.7 million for infringement of two additional patents, according to the jury charge.
On April 4 Netlist filed notice with the court it was narrowing its claims for trial.
Two days before trial began, Samsung filed a renewed motion to stay this case in light of a case pending at the Ninth Circuit “regarding Samsung’s license to the asserted patents and resolution of inter partes review of the asserted patents.”
Samsung noted in the motion that when it first asked for a stay in January 2022, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board has instituted inter partes review of only four of the six patents asserted in this case.
“Samsung now submits this renewed motion to stay and notice of supplemental authority to notify the court that, just hours ago, the PTAB instituted IPR of all asserted claims of the remaining two asserted patents,” Samsung wrote. “All asserted claims of all asserted patents are now subject to IPR. … In light of these developments, Samsung now renews its motion to stay the above captioned litigation until the conclusion of IPR by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board relating to all asserted patents in this case.”
Judge Gilstrap denied the request April 13 and trial began the next day.
The jury in the Samsung case returned its verdict at 2:30 p.m. while the jury note indicating a verdict had been reached in the Textron case is timestamped 2:43 p.m.
Textron filed suit in July 2021 against Da-Jiang Innovations, also known as SZ DJI Technology Co., accusing the Chinese drone manufacturer of infringing patents that originally belonged to Textron’s sister company, Bell Textron.
The jury in that case, in U.S. District Judge Alan Albright’s courtroom, began hearing testimony April 17 and started deliberations following closing arguments Friday morning. The jury sided with Textron on all issues, finding DJI directly infringed two of Textron’s patents, that DJI actively induced infringement of the same two patents and that DJI did so willfully.
The panel awarded $30.7 million in damages for infringement of one patent and $248.2 million in damages for infringement of the second patent.
Attorneys for the parties were not immediately available to comment Monday.
Netlist is represented by Jennifer Truelove, Samuel Baxter and Kevin Burgess of McKool Smith and Jason Sheasby, Annita Zhong, Thomas C. Werner, Andrew Strabone, Yanan Zhao, Michael W. Tezyan and Rebecca Carson of Irell & Manella.
Samsung is represented by Katherine H. Reardon, Ruffin B. Cordell, Michael J. McKeon, Lauren A. Degnan, Brian Livedalen, Daniel A. Tishman, Matthew Mosteller, Sara C. Fish, Francis J. Albert, Thomas H. Reger II, Matthew Colvin and Karolina Jesien of Fish & Richardson, Melissa Richards Smith of Gillam & Smith and Alice J. Ahn and Brian R. Nester of Covington & Burling.
Textron Innovation is represented by Mark Speegle, Kurt Pankratz, Harrison Rich, Morgan Mayne, Emily Felvey, Boyang Zhang and Arya Moshiri of Baker Botts, Kevin J. Meek of McDermott Will & Emery, and Mark D. Siegmund and Melissa S. Ruiz of Cherry Johnson Siegmund James.
SZ DJI Technology Co. is represented by Benjamin R. Schlesinger, Qingyu Yin, J. Michael Jakes, Sydney Kestle, Robert K. High. Jacob A. Schroeder, Jinwoo Kim and Yanyi Liu of Finnegan Henderson Farabow Garrett & Dunner and John P. Palmer, John A. “Andy” Powell and Jacqueline P. Altman of Naman Howell Smith & Lee.
The case number for the Netlist lawsuit is 2:21-cv-00463. The case number for the Textron Innovations lawsuit is 6:21-cv-00740.