$9M Jury Verdict in Texas Patent Infringement Case Against Motorola

Houston patent trial lawyer Demetrios Anaipakos of Ahmad, Zavitsanos, Anaipakos, Alavi & Mensing P.C., or AZA, has won a $9 million federal jury verdict for Texas-based patent licensing company Saint Lawrence Communications LLC against technology heavyweight Motorola Mobility LLC for patent infringement.

After a week-long trial, jurors in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas decided that Motorola had “willfully” infringed on five Saint Lawrence Communications patents relating to HD Voice technology. Willful infringement allows US District Judge Rodney Gilstrap to potentially triple the nearly $9.2 million verdict delivered last week.

“The jury agreed Saint Lawrence has world-class technology that Motorola has known about for a decade and has refused to license. They gave Saint Lawrence every penny we asked for,” said Mr. Anaipakos, who led the trial effort along with AZA lawyers Amir Alavi, Alisa Lipski, Brian E. Simmons, Michael McBride, Masood Anjom, Kyril Talanov, Nathan Campbell, Jamie Aycock, Scott W. Clark, Weining Bai and Justin Chen.

Saint Lawrence owns six families of patents that are essential to the Adaptive Multi-Rate-Wideband (AMR-WB) standard, which provides excellent speech quality transmission. The company, headquartered in the Dallas suburb of Plano, is pursuing claims against multiple communications companies that are using its technology without paying license fees. It has achieved significant injunctive relief in Germany against big players there.

In the case tried in Marshall, jurors found that Motorola infringed on Patent Nos. 6,795,805, 6,807,524, 7,151,802, 7,260,521 and 7,191,123. The case is Saint Lawrence Communications LLC v. Motorola Mobility LLC, No. 2:15-cv-00351.

Wesley Hill of Longview-based Ward Smith & Hill, PLLC, was local counsel in the case. Houston lawyer Christopher M. First of Heim Payne & Chorush LLP also worked with the AZA team.

(Source: AZA)