New Jersey Jury Accepts Compass Lexecon’s Senior Consultant Dr. Jonathan Arnold’s Analysis in its Totality; Awards $125 Million in Patent Infringement Damages

Compass Lexecon’s client EagleView Technologies claimed Verisk Analytics infringed multiple patents. In a twelve-day jury trial, EagleView prevailed and the jury awarded the full $125 million in lost profits damages Compass Lexecon Senior Consultant Dr. Jonathan Arnold testified to at trial.

At issue was the market for rooftop aerial measurement products. In particular, EagleView created an entirely new class of products that saved enormous time and money in the roof repair industry. Using aerial photography, EagleView’s patented technology allowed insurance adjusters and roofers to obtain calculations of roof pitch, square footage, and other key roof metrics. Instead of climbing up on to roofs, EagleView can provide a written report on most structures in the U.S. in a matter of hours. Moreover, EagleView’s patented technology resulted in roof calculations that are more accurate than hand measurement. In addition, in the event of major catastrophes (e.g., hurricanes and hail storms), EagleView is able to rapidly supply before-and-after analyses for thousands of properties – a service valued by property and casualty insurers.

Dr. Arnold offered detailed testimony quantifying lost profits under the Panduit test. He successfully walked the jury through each element of the test and demonstrated that EagleView satisfied each predicate for recovering the profits lost by EagleView.

In addition to quantifying the profits EagleView lost because of the diversion of roof report sales to the infringing products, Dr. Arnold demonstrated that the presence of defendants’ infringing products in the market caused price to erode over time. Despite the fact that infringing sales represented a relatively small portion of overall demand, Dr. Arnold showed that price erosion caused about two-thirds of EagleView’s overall economic loss.

Dr. Arnold also quantified a reasonable royalty pursuant to the Georgia-Pacific factors and explained why a royalty would not adequately compensate the patent owner given the facts and circumstances of the dispute.

EagleView Technologies was successfully represented by Adam R. Alper, Michael W. De Vries, Brandon H. Brown, Reza Dokhanchy, Patricia A. Carson, Leslie M. Schmidt, Gianni Cutri, Joel R. Merkin and Kristina N. Hendricks of Kirkland & Ellis LLP; Liza M. Walsh, Hector D. Ruiz and Eleonore Ofosu-Antwi of Walsh Pizzi O'Reilly Falanga LLP and David Silverman, General Counsel of EagleView Technologies.

The Compass Lexecon team supporting Dr. Arnold was led by Anne Marie Yale with assistance from Kevin Hartt, Judy Smith, and Amessha Jones from Compass Lexecon’s Chicago office.