A federal judge in Texas has dismissed a previous $847 million verdict against Verizon alleging that the wireless communications company violated patent rights.
U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap ordered a new trial after ruling that the former verdict supporting the Dallas-based General Access Solutions’ (GAS) allegation that Verizon infringed on its wireless communication technology was “against the great weight of the evidence.”
GAS sued Verizon in 2022, alleging that the latter infringed on its patent claims. The initial complaint argues that Verizon’s 5G wireless base stations, hotspots, mobile phones, and wireless routers infringed on patented technology engineered by GAS that pioneered “beamforming” access in which “certain information is broadcasted widely to multiple devices.”
This technology was developed by WestEnd Broadband—later named GAS—in the early 2000s.
Verizon denied this infringement, asserting that the “claims were invalid as lacking sufficient written description and enablement” under federal code and that a new trial was needed to include evidence that was excluded by the court.
A jury disagreed and found that the claim was valid and that Verizon owed “a lump-sum reasonable royalty” of $847 million.
Among Verizon’s arguments, the company said GAS relied on a technical expert who reached erroneous conclusions and resorted to theories that impermissibly changed “the meaning of the claim language” and gutted “the sole limitation that allowed the Plaintiff to overcome the prior art during prosecution.”
“According to Verizon, Plaintiff improperly ignored the plain language of the claims by advancing an infringement theory that focused on information used much earlier in the process, before the generation of the signal that actually reaches the devices,” Judge Gilstrap said.
The technical expert’s testimony “improperly characterized” one aspect of Verizon’s technology, which led to false assertions based on poor evidence, Verizon argued.
Gilstrap said he was “persuaded that the issues raised by Verizon are both substantially and fairly warrant a new trial on the entire case, including the issue of infringement, invalidity, and damages.”
He cited case law stating that a “new trial may be granted, for example, if the district court finds the verdict is against the weight of the evidence, the damages awarded are excessive, the trial was unfair, or prejudicial error was committed in its course.”
The new trial is set for Dec. 6, 2024.
The Epoch Times has contacted Verizon and the attorney for GAS for comment on the ruling.
