Jury Awards 10 4 Million in Damages to Philips for Zoll S Infringement of Defibrillator Patents

Written by Daniel Kiang and Marko R. Zoretic
Editors: Joseph Cianfrani and Boris Zelkind

Patent Judgments and Awards

On August 3, 2017, a Boston jury awarded Philips $10.4 million in damages for ZOLL’s infringement of three patents relating to automated external defibrillators.  This represents only a fraction of the $200 in damages that Philips was seeking at trial.  Philips originally sued its competitor, ZOLL, in 2010 for infringement of fifteen of its patents.  In response, ZOLL counter sued with several of its own patents.  In a 2013 trial focused on liability for patent infringement, a jury found that ZOLL infringed five of seven Philips patents that remained in the case, and that Philips infringed two of ZOLL’s patents.  Philips and ZOLL appealed the liability determinations to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, which invalidated some of the asserted patent claims.  In the 2017 trial to determine the amount of damages, Philips asked the jury to award over $200 million as a reasonable royalty for the infringed patents.  However, the jury returned a verdict of only $10.4 million in total damages to Philips for infringement of three of its patents.  That award was further offset by a $3.3 million award to ZOLL for Philips’ infringement of its two patents.

The case is Koninklijke Philips, N.V., et al.  v. Zoll Medical Corp., Civil Action No. 10-cv-11041 (D. Mass.)