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Message: Settlement May Be Preferable to Trial / Appeal in Terms of Risk

Settlement May Be Preferable to Trial / Appeal in Terms of Risk

posted on Dec 12, 2007 10:16AM

Based on the following excerpt below (that was copied from the Patent Litigation for Dummies provided earlier), I would think that settlement would be preferable option to taking this to trail. I would be more concerned about the appeal outcome risk as opposed to the outcome of the jury trial..as the defendants would undoubtedly appeal as they would have nothing to lose at this point..other than increased court expenses / attorney's fees which would be cheap, from their standpoint, if an expensive verdict were ruled in our favor - not to mention the increased expenses / costs on our side of the equation having to further defend (which are probably extensive at this point). While I agree that a trail win would result in a stronger message to other offenders going forward, I don't think it offsets the risk of losing on appeal. Further, while I am not sure about patent cases, most cases don't go to trial from a statistical standpoint - they are either settled, die on the vine, etc. How often have you read about enormous jury trial verdicts that were subsequently drastically reduced upon appeal..worth considering IMO. Further settlement is a known outcome - trial / appeal is not.

"..Appeal. An enormous number of patent infringement cases are appealed. All of them, regardless of geographic origin, go the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The reason so many are appealed (apart from the potential money at stake) is that the law of claim construction is a mess. The Fed Circuit overturns about half of all claim construction rulings brought up to it. So, all things being equal, you have a 50/50 chance of winning claim construction on appeal (which, as mentioned earlier, has a large effect on whether the patent is actually infringed (and also whether it is anticipated by a given piece of prior art under the 'that which infringes if later, anticipates if earlier' rule))."

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