United States Ninth Circuit

A jury found in favor of plaintiff for infringement of their enterprise software copyrights and awarded plaintiffs damages based on the fair market value of a hypothetical-license, but the district court's subsequent judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) concluding that plaintiff failed to provide enough evidence to establish a non-speculative hypothetical-license price is: 1) affirmed as to the JMOL, where plaintiff did not have to show that a license would actually have been granted to defendants; 2) the hypothetical-license damage award was based on undue speculation; 3) affirmed as to the grant of defendants' motion for a new trial conditioned on plaintiff's rejection of a remittitur, and 4) vacated as to the ruling selecting $272 million as the remittitur, as it was below the maximum amount sustainable by the proof.

Appellate Information

• Decided 08/29/2014
• Published 08/29/2014

Judges

• Fletcher

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel