PanOptis Sees East Texas Award Shrink to $0, Also Loses Summary Judgment over $25M Contingency Payment

A third Eastern District of Texas jury has considered claims brought by PanOptis Holdings, LLC (defined more fully below) against Apple. The first found infringement and awarded PanOptis $500M in damages, but in a damages retrial, the second trimmed that amount down to $300M. The Federal Circuit subsequently threw out the entire judgment (of infringement from the first jury and of damages from the second) because a general verdict form had been used for infringement—i.e., the first jury was simply presented with a single question, whether PanOptis had proven infringement of any of the asserted claims from the five patents tried, rather than with patent-by-patent infringement questions. After remand, this past week, a third jury returned a noninfringement verdict for Apple, awarding no damages at all.