Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCS) has filed a lawsuit for additional damages against Sprint Corp (NYSE:S) after a Pennsylvania jury rewarded it with over $1.5 million following a patent infringement lawsuit. According to the US Court of Appeals for Federal Circuit, Comcast will defend its arguments on December 5, 2017.
Comcast alleges that Sprint violated its text messaging patent when it used it for its wireless picture mail and mobile email. In the original case filed in 2012, Comcast purchased the text messaging patent from Nokia. The patent is allegedly issued in 2005 and was meant for text messaging and multimedia messaging systems. Initially, Comcast sought for compensation for the damage costing more than $153 million based on the given royalties for text and multimedia messaging that was sent by Sprint’s users.
The jury found out that there was adequate evidence showing that Sprint violated the patent. As a result, Comcast was awarded $1.5 million for damages incurred, which were based on the initial price of the patent before it was obtained from Nokia. Recently, Comcast has argued that the damages were miscalculated basing on the cost of the patent rather than the rampant years that Sprint had infringing used the patent.
More than 2.66 trillion text messages have already been exchanged among the Sprint customers. Furthermore, when Comcast was purchasing the patent, they were assured that the company was not planning to use them in the future. Comcast filed a new motion for the trial on the alleged damages in early March 2017, but a Pennsylvania judge rejected the motion on August 16. Thereafter, the company again filed the case on August 25, in which the first hearing was conducted in September.
Comcast has sought the services of Munger Tolles & Olson LLP to represent them in the case, while Sprint is being represented by the attorneys with the Virginia-based McGuire Woods LLP and Kansas City-based Shook Hardy & Bacon LLP. The company expects to receive about $153 million in damages, less the $1.5 million received earlier.
