Lost profits and royalties are not the only way to measure patent damages. In Minco Inc. v. Combustion Eng’g, Inc., 95 F.3d 1109, 1120 (Fed. Cir. 1996), the Federal Circuit recognized that a patent owner might have been entitled to damages resulting from a third parties’ purchase of the infringer’s business, if it had proven that the infringing products were an important factor in the sale.
Patent owner Minco sought damages arising from defendant infringer CE’s sale of its fused silica business to a third party. Minco sought as damages the difference between the sale price of CE’s Business and an expert valuation of CE’s business without the infringing kilns. Minco argued that if CE had not infringed, the third party would have purchased Minco’s business instead of CE’s.
The court recognized that in theory Minco might have been entitled to some recovery from CE’s sale of its business because it included infringing kilns. But, the court determined that Minco did not show that infringing kilns were an important factor in the sale. After the third party acquired CE’s business, the third party switched to its own patented furnace, which undermined Minco’s claim that kilns drove the sale.