"For the past year, the Federal Circuit has been systematically tightening the screws on patent damages and particularly pro-patentee expert testimony on the issue. Beginning with EcoFactor, Inc. v. Google LLC, 137 F.4th 1333 (Fed. Cir. 2025), the court vacated a $20 million reasonable royalty award for insufficient apportionment. Then came Jiaxing Super Lighting Electric Appliance Co. v. CH Lighting Technology Co., 146 F.4th 1098 (Fed. Cir. 2025), where the court vacated another award and suggested (in dicta) that experts must quantify their Georgia-Pacific adjustments."
"Today's decision in Willis Electric Co., Ltd. v. Polygroup Ltd., No. 2024-2118 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 17, 2026), suggests there is a limit. Writing for a unanimous panel, Chief Judge Moore affirmed a jury's $40+ million reasonable royalty award on a single dependent claim covering coaxial barrel connectors used in pre-lit artificial Christmas trees. The opinion runs to 37 pages, with the bulk devoted to a comprehensive defense of the damages verdict under Rule 702 and Daubert."
The Federal Circuit issued a series of decisions intensifying scrutiny of patent damages and expert testimony, vacating multiple reasonable-royalty awards for inadequate apportionment and demanding greater quantification of Georgia-Pacific adjustments. EcoFactor, Jiaxing, LabCorp, and Coda reflected an appellate trend toward excluding or overturning expert opinions that failed to meet heightened apportionment and methodological requirements. In Willis Electric, the court unanimously affirmed a $40+ million jury award for a dependent claim covering coaxial barrel connectors, upholding the patentee's expert income- and market-based apportionment and defending the testimony under Rule 702 and Daubert as sufficiently reliable.
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