Patent Damages: Reasonable Royalty

A reasonable royalty for the infringer’s use of the invention is one way to measure damages for patent infringement (others include lost profits and established royalties).

A reasonable royalty is a amount determined by a court to result from a hypothetical negotiation between the patent owner and the infringer. The hypothetical negotiation attempts to determine the royalty that the reasonable parties would have agreed to had they successfully negotiated an agreement just before infringement began. Wordtech Sys. v. Integrated Networks Sols., Inc., 609 F.3d 1308, 1319 (Fed. Cir. 2010).  This necessarily involves a degree of approximation and uncertainty.

Courts often consider the Georgia-Pacific factors in determining a reasonable royalty. Those factors are:

1. The royalties received by the patentee for the licensing of the patent in suit, proving or tending to prove an established royalty.

2. The rates paid by the licensee for the use of other patents comparable to the patent in suit.

3. The nature and scope of the license, as exclusive or non-exclusive; or as restricted or non-restricted in terms of territory or with respect to whom the manufactured product may be sold.

4. The licensor’s established policy and marketing program to maintain his patent monopoly by not licensing others to use the invention or by granting licenses under special conditions designed to preserve that monopoly.

5. The commercial relationship between the licensor and licensee, such as, whether they are competitors in the same territory in the same line of business; or whether they are inventor and promotor.

6. The effect of selling the patented specialty in promoting sales of other products of the licensee; the existing value of the invention to the licensor as a generator of sales of his non-patented items; and the extent of such derivative or convoyed sales.

7. The duration of the patent and the term of the license.

8. The established profitability of the product made under the patent; its commercial success; and its current popularity.

9. The utility and advantages of the patent property over the old modes or devices, if any, that had been used for working out similar results.

10. The nature of the patented invention; the character of the commercial embodiment of it as owned and produced by the licensor; and the benefits to those who have used the invention.

11. The extent to which the infringer has made use of the invention; and any evidence probative of the value of that use.

12. The portion of the profit or of the selling price that may be customary in the particular business or in comparable businesses to allow for the use of the invention or analogous inventions.

13. The portion of the realizable profit that should be credited to the invention as distinguished from non-patented elements, the manufacturing process, business risks, or significant features or improvements added by the infringer.

14. The opinion testimony of qualified experts.

15. The amount that a licensor (such as the patentee) and a licensee (such as the infringer) would have agreed upon (at the time the infringement began) if both had been reasonably and voluntarily trying to reach an agreement; that is, the amount which a prudent licensee — who desired, as a business proposition, to obtain a license to manufacture and sell a particular article embodying the patented invention — would have been willing to pay as a royalty and yet be able to make a reasonable profit and which amount would have been acceptable by a prudent patentee who was willing to grant a license.

[Ga.-Pacific Corp. v. United States Plywood Corp., 318 F. Supp. 1116, 1120 (S.D.N.Y. 1970)].

While the Federal Circuit has approved use of the Georgia-Pacific factors, it has also said that they are a comprehensive list but unprioritized and often overlapping. ResQNet.com, Inc. v. Lansa, Inc, 594 F.3d 860, 869 (Fed. Cir. 2010). The factors are also not exclusive in that other factors could be considered.

The Georgia-Pacific factors can be grouped in two categories according to Chisum on Patents. 1-20 Chisum on Patents § 20.07 (2017). The first group is directed to general and specific market conditions in the industry. The second group sets a range of feasible rates “since a willing patent owner would demand a greater than minimum rate for a profitable invention and a willing user would concede no more than the expected amount of profit.” Chisum says that “The first group of factors points to the rate that the parties would have adopted within that range.”