Need for Close Attention to Proposed Reasonable Royalty Evidence
A recent court decision precluding a patent owner from relying on any of its proffered evidence to support a proposed reasonable royalty rate should be studied carefully by patent owners. See Acceleration Bay LLC. v. Activision Blizzard Inc., C.A. No. 16-00453-RGA, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 178362 (D. Del. Oct. 17, 2018). The case underscores how closely courts are evaluating evidence put forward to support a proposed reasonable royalty and the need to carefully vet such evidence (and decide who will present it) early in the case. In Activision, the defendant moved to preclude the plaintiff’s damages theories and supporting evidence. The court granted-in-part defendant’s motion. The plaintiff patentee had sought to support its proposed reasonable royalty rate of 15.5 percent with four pieces of evidence: (1) testimony of its Vice President of Licensing; (2) testimony of its CEO; (3) an industry report; and (4) an agreement between the defendant and a third party. The court precluded all four categories of evidence. First, the court precluded the testimony of the plaintiff’s licensing executive, stating that a reasonable royalty opinion is necessarily based on specialized knowledge, which the executive lacked. The court also found that the executive lacked personal knowledge of the facts underlying the royalty rate that would allow him to testify on the subject. Id....