The end of Joe Mullin’s Corporate Counsel article on the DataTreasury vs. U.S. Bancorp patent infringement verdict has a roundup of useful links to earlier coverage of the case and documents filed with the court.
The bloody-shirt jury argument
As seems to be customary in such cases, the patent owner’s lawyer both waved the American flag and invoked the sanctifying powers of the Patent and Trademark Office; perhaps less customarily, he arguably waved the bloody shirt, while maligning Egypt and India in the process:
While defense lawyers emphasized during the trial that DataTreasury’s experts were paid—including a computer scientist who acknowledged that serving as a DataTreasury expert was his full-time job—Roach reminded the jury that “not everybody” who found value in Ballard’s patents was on the company’s payroll.
“Four qualified, experienced, unbiased experts have decided whether or not the Ballard patent is new and novel,” Roach said during his summation. “They are the patent examiners….They are paid by the United States of America. They are paid by the United States of America to help protect and make America strong by protecting American inventors and protecting American invention.”
“Remember what Dr. [Jerry] Hausman, the defendants’ expert, told you would happen if we disregarded intellectual property rights?” Roach continued. “That we’d end up like India and Egypt where people don’t invent things. [sic] Instead, they go around talking about ways they hate America and waysthey want to fly airplanes into our buildings. [sic]”
[Emphasis added.]
A partial defense win on damages
The defense team achieved a significant partial victory, though: The damages award — $27 million, which might be tripled because of the jury’s finding of willful infringement — was less than 15% of what the patent owner had sought, although it was four times what the defense had claimed was a reasonable number.
Clearly the defense was teeing up an appeal on Lucent v. Gateway grounds that the evidence did not support treating the patented invention as being worth that much money. (See this Morgan Lewis memo for more details on the Lucent case.)
Follow me
Signing a business contract:
10 years ago we used to get our checks mailed back to us and no one had a clue that it cost the banks between $1 and $2.50 to do so . US Bank was being asked to pay 200 mil for 13 billion transactions or a penny and a half per transaction . A savings of 12.8 billion without a calculator .for 200 million in cost . Most people would jump on that deal and say thankyou except if you are an arrogant banker and bankers that have joined in a destroy mission on a small company .
BTW IBM a known giant built there huge business by telling coporate we will save you 50% buy this computer and 4 people will do what 35 used to do . Datatreasury is trying to achieve a fair royalty of less than 2% and that seems
like alot right . Now here is the history , Datatreasury tried to sell their services setting up a coporate office hiring a 100 people and had their technology STOLEN by Chase , who admitted it , and in the process lost $25
million . Datatreasury has over 500 shareholders who have been waiting for
up to 10 years and invested in good faith in an idea that works , was stolen , and every possible stall tactic was and is being used to add time to the process of collecting rent on what you own . The get rich quick scheme
for the investor who invested 10 years ago at $.50 a share and then expeirenced a reverse split of 51 to one , giving him a cost basis of $25.50
doesn’t exist . Don’t get fooled by the numbers get the facts and do the math .
BTW Datatreasury has the incrypted technology in the patent which protects
the banks and its clients . So it is impossible to believe that US Bank is no longer using the technology , when is the last time you went to a doctor and he did not have mal practice insurance . Here is the truth , the lawyers for the banks are milking their bank clients like cows . Plenty of banks have now settled and have been able to stay in business without going broke and have decided to be fair . Chase , PNC , Diebold , Citibank , NCR , Edward Jones ,etc they are all on the Datatreasury website . The question is , when will the banks fighting the lawsuit get smart enough to pay a fair royalty and move on .