See the recent article on Legislative patent damages reform published in the Los Angeles Daily Journal

One of ourbloggers, Chris Marchese, published an article on August 11, 2010 that he co-wrote with Olga May (an associate in Fish's San Diego office). The article is entitled: "Runaway Patent Damages Awards: Is Statutory Reform on the Way?" (See the article here: Marchese-May Daily Journal Article on Patent Damages Reform.) The article is reprinted and/posted with the permission of the Daily Journal Corp. The article talks about the huge damages verdicts being handed down by juries across the country, and offers an opinion -- of course, the two authors' opinion -- that Congress should intervene and issueamendments to the patent damages statute that have teeth....particularly, legislation that codifies thekey principles of the entire market value rule and apportionment.

As you probably know, Congress has been batting around patent reform legislation forseveral years. One of they key ingredients of the reform -- and also one of the most controversial -- has been damages reform. It's a hot button topic for numerous industry groups, including biotech, pharma, non-practicing entities, and IT. But Congress has been unable, at least so far, to draft an amendment to the damages statute that will make it throughthe House and Senate.

The article tackles the history of the Congressional effort to amend the damages law and some of efforts by the Federal Circuit and district courts to putlimits on the runaway damages awards. Feel free toread it -- it's not too long!

And feel free to send in your comments. We'd love to hear your thoughts on this interesting topic.