Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation, et al. v. Power Integrations, Inc, C.A. No. 12-540 – LPS, March 20, 2015.

Stark, C. J.  Defendant’s Daubert motion is granted in part and the remaining part remains pending.  Plaintiff’s motion to preclude testimony is denied in part and granted in part.  Experts whose testimony was excluded may serve revised supplemental reports as is the opposing party’s experts, and both sides’ experts are to be made available for depositions. Oral argument was held on March 3, 2015.

Defendant claims that plaintiff’s damages expert for induced infringement should not be allowed to testify because he used the wrong date for the hypothetical negotiation. Plaintiff contends that defendant’s expert used the same incorrect date, which fact was not contested.  The court sua sponte precluded experts from both sides from offering opinions based on the incorrect date. The court disagrees with plaintiff’s argument that Defendant’s expert’s analysis on infringement and invalidity is improper for importing new limitation on terms and for failure to provide an adequate elaboration of his opinion. Plaintiff also challenges the opinions of a second expert on the grounds that his “relative value allocation” approach to apportionment is unreliable and contains a fatal mathematical error, relying on defendant’s products in his apportionment analysis rather than the accused products. The court finds that reliance to be proper. The court agrees that defendant’s reliance on a “rule of thumb” that 80% of value may be attributable to intellectual property is improper because the analysis improperly deals with high-tech companies rather than high-tech products, and is therefore unreliable. The mathematical error regarding the sales price of one accused product is conceded and should be corrected before trial.