Jury Awards Siemens Medical $52 Million in Patent Dispute

In September a Delaware jury awarded Siemens Medical $52.3 million in damages after finding that Saint-Gobain Ceramics & Plastics had induced infringement of a patent covering technology used in positron emission tomography (PET) scanners, which are used to detect cancer and other diseases.

Saint-Gobain supplied Siemens’ competitor, Philips Medical Systems, with technology similar to that used by Siemens in its PET scanners. The jury found that Philips scanners using that technology infringed Siemens’ patent, and thus that Saint-Gobain was liable for inducing infringement of Siemens’ patent.

Siemens’ counsel, Kirkland & Ellis, retained Mary A. Woodford, a vice president at Cornerstone Research, to assess the damages that Siemens had suffered due to the patent infringement. At trial, Ms. Woodford presented her analysis of the profits that Siemens had lost due to the infringement. Critical to her analysis was the importance of the patented technology to the performance of Siemens PET scanners and to the performance of the infringing Philips PET scanners. The jury awarded damages equal to 95 percent of the amount that Ms. Woodford presented in her testimony.