Bedrock Computer Technologies, LLC v. Yahoo!

Analysis Group client Yahoo! was sued by Bedrock Computer Technologies, LLC, for the alleged infringement of a patent related to an "on the fly" method of disposing of obsolete records contained in certain versions of the Linux kernel. Bedrock was seeking $32.4 million in claimed royalty damages. A team from Analysis Group was retained by the law firms of McDermott Will & Emery, LLP, and Haltom & Doan, LLP, to evaluate Bedrock's claimed damages.

The case, Bedrock Computer Technologies, LLC v. Yahoo!, was tried before Judge Davis in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division. An Analysis Group team, including Senior Advisor Keith R. Ugone, Principal Na Dawson, and Vice President Minh Doan, conducted an independent evaluation of the plaintiff's claimed damages and prepared rebuttal reports.

Dr. Ugone testified in deposition and at trial that if infringement were found, claimed damages should be significantly less than the amount being sought by Bedrock. The factors Dr. Ugone considered included the cost to modify the accused software code, the limited value of the accused code to Yahoo!, Yahoo!'s ability to remove the accused code from the Linux kernel, and the existence of acceptable non-infringing alternatives.

After a week-long trial, the jury found that Yahoo! did not infringe the patent in suit and awarded no damages to Bedrock. This jury finding marks the first defendant victory in a patent infringement case tried in the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division, since 2007.

The same Analysis Group team was retained to evaluate damages in a related patent infringement case, Bedrock Computer Technologies, LLC v. Google, Inc. Bedrock had also sued Amazon.com, AOL, Match.com, MySpace, and SoftLayer for alleged infringement of the same patent at issue in this case. Dr. Ugone was the damages expert for all the defendants.