Federal Circuit stays on track to award $2.5m in rail patent case
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has affirmed a district court decision ordering engineering company Holland to pay $2.5 million to Georgetown Rail Equipment Company for patent infringement.
In a opinion (pdf) made on August 1 but revealed yesterday, August 16, a three-judge panel found Holland’s arguments “unpersuasive”.
The decision came after a 2015 jury decision at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, which ruled that Holland had infringed US patent number 7,616,329, relating to “a system and method for inspecting railroad track”.
Georgetown had sued Holland for patent infringement and was granted a preliminary injunction in 2014 barring Holland from selling goods incorporating the infringing patent.
The court awarded Georgetown $1.5 million in lost profits and an additional $1 million in enhanced damages, “based on a finding of wilful infringement”.
Holland challenged the district court’s award of lost profits, and further argued that the Federal Circuit should reverse the district court’s decision on enhanced damages.
But the appeals court said: “We cannot conclude that the district court abused its discretion in weighing the evidence.
“None of the arguments Holland makes with respect to the findings of enhanced damages demonstrate abuse of discretion by the district court.”
It went on to state that the lower court had made “detailed factual findings” to support its award of enhanced damages, stating that it had taken into account the degree of wilfulness and had not found it necessary to enhance the damages to the maximum cost, which would have been $4.5 million.
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