The telecommunications company Sprint has seen its profile rise recently in the area of patent law as (1) the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit just addressed two of Sprint’s appeals challenging lower court patent infringement verdicts adverse to it, and (2) Sprint achieved just this month a large damages jury verdict in a patent case against Time Warner Cable. In the appealed cases, the Federal Circuit affirmed lower court rulings finding infringement and damages. This article addresses each of these decisions.
‘Prism’
In Prism Tech. v. Sprint Spectrum L.P., 2016-1456 (Fed. Cir. March 6, 2017), Sprint requested that the Federal Circuit find that the district court erred in (1) allowing Prism to modify its claim construction, (2) admitting an AT&T settlement agreement, (3) applying the wrong legal standard in deciding its motion for a new trial, and (4) admitting Prism’s cost savings damages evidence. Prism, Slip Op. at 7. The Federal Circuit rejected each of Sprint’s challenges.