Patent litigation study shows larger damage awards

PricewaterhouseCoopers’s annual PwC's 2010 Patent Litigation Study, based on the firm’s database of patent damages awards from 1980 through 2009, shows “patent holders are winning considerable awards of damages as US patent trial success rates near their highest level in history. The largest ever patent damages award of over $1.8 billion was issued in 2009, for a case that is currently in the appeals process.”

It will be interesting to see how the recent Uniloc/Microsoft case will affect patent damage awards in the future. Patent attorney Jimmy Nyugen (Wildman Harrold) told BVLaw “the Federal Circuit has signaled for some time that it is scrutinizing large damage awards.  This ruling will go a long way to curbing what many people view as excessive patent damage awards.”