OPTIS CELLULAR TECHNOLOGY, LLC v. APPLE INC.
Before Prost, Reyna, and Stark. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.
Summary: Patent plaintiffs have a right to a unanimous verdict on each legal claim related to infringement, which usually corresponds to each asserted patent.
Optis sued Apple for infringement of five standard-essential patents directed to LTE mobile communications. Prior to trial, both parties proposed breaking up the infringement questions by patent on the jury’s verdict form. The district court rejected both parties’ proposals and included a single infringement question asking whether Apple “infringed ANY of the Asserted Claims.” The jury answered yes, finding Apple infringed.
On appeal, Apple argued that a single infringement question covering all the asserted patents violated its right to jury unanimity. Specifically, Apple argued that the verdict form improperly permitted the jury to find Apple liable for infringement even if various jurors believed Apple was infringing different asserted patents. The Federal Circuit agreed and held that, because each patent gives rise to a distinct cause of action, Apple had a right to a unanimous verdict on each asserted patent.
The Federal Circuit also rejected Optis’s argument that the infringement finding was justified by jury instructions requiring unanimous determinations and by the size of the jury’s unanimous damages award. The court held that the jury instructions were not sufficiently clear and that the damages award was not sufficiently probative of the jury’s view of infringement. Thus, the Federal Circuit vacated the jury’s infringement finding and remanded for a new trial.
Editor: Sean Murray
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