Provisur Systems, Inc. v. Weber, Inc., Docket No. 5:19-cv-06021 (W.D. Mo. Feb 22, 2019)
A jury has sided with Provisur and issued a $10 million verdict against its foods-processing machinery competitor Weber Maschinenbau. This is about 50 percent what Provisur requested.
The patents protect numerous many large-pace slicers, conveyors, and packaging gear. I put in a summer performing on the line of a bacon packing manufacturing unit and know how significant it is to have machinery that is speedy and risk-free, and operates very well even with variable inputs and badly skilled handlers.
Next a nine-working day demo, an 8-member jury found statements from a few of the four asserted patents infringed. The Judge in the scenario is Stephen Bough, a 2014 Obama appointee. In conditions like these, Judge Bough normally seats a 6-member jury with two alternates. (Underneath FRCP 48, the jury demands to have at least 6 jurors in get to render a verdict in civil instances). 
The jury also located the infringement willful. The patentee will probably use that willfulness verdict to ask for punitive damages. In submit-verdict motions, the defendant will probable renew its motion for Judgment as a Make any difference of Regulation. A important issue is lifted in the pre-verdict JMOL movement was no matter whether the patentee is entitled to rely on an Whole Marketplace Worth Rule to work out damages instead than an apportionment strategy. The patentee also indicated in its pre-trial temporary that it planned to also search for injunctive damages. That equitable situation is resolved by a choose alternatively than jury.
A person appealing aspect of the verdict is that the jury was approved to to determine the circumstance on possibly literal infringement or underneath the doctrine of equivalents (DOE). The verdict sort did not, even so, need the jury to distinguish among the two. Therefore, the verdict can be upheld on both ground. I have incorporated the jury guidance on DOE under.
The patentee was represented by Willkie Farr & Gallagher on a group led by Craig Martin. Sterne Kessler represented the defendants. This appears to be a single of quite a few ongoing patent battles in between the two functions in US court docket, the PTAB, and abroad.