Fact-Intensive Reasonable Royalty Analysis Need Not Be Peer Reviewed Or Published To Be Admissible

Summit 6, LLC v. Samsung Elecs. Co.

Addressing the admissibility of expert testimony on damages issues, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the district court's admission of expert testimony based on a fact-intensive analysis that was not peer reviewed or published. The Federal Circuit also agreed that the expert could assume that the frequency of a feature's use is proportional to its value, and also that an expert can rely on evidence from consumer surveys as long as experts in the field reasonably rely on those surveys. Summit 6, LLC v. Samsung Elecs. Co., Nos. 13-1648, -1651 (Fed. Cir., Sept. 21, 2015) (Reyna, J.).

After a jury trial resulting in a $15 million damages award, Samsung challenged the district court's admission of Summit 6's expert's (Mr. Paul Benoit's) reasonable-royalty analysis. The asserted patents related to the processing of digital photos, such as in a mobile phone with a camera. Mr. Benoit analyzed Samsung's cost and