A federal judge awarded the plaintiff $315 million in an antitrust trial stemming from patent infringement claims.
Retained by Nixon & Vanderhye and Freeborn Peters
Shuffle Tech, a group of entrepreneurs who invented an automatic card shuffler for card tables, and their partners Poydras-Talrick Holdings LLC and Aces Up Gaming, were sued by SHFL Entertainment Inc. (SHFL). SHFL alleged that Shuffle Tech had violated two of its patents for its automatic shufflers. In an antitrust countersuit brought against Scientific Games Corp. (SGC), one of the world’s largest gambling equipment providers that had acquired SHFL, Shuffle Tech claimed that SHFL’s patents were fraudulent, and that SHFL illegally used those patents to stop Shuffle Tech from entering the market. Shuffle Tech’s counsel retained Matthew Lynde of Cornerstone Research to provide trial testimony on liability and damages.
The panel accepted Dr. Lynde’s damages estimate, awarding the plaintiffs $315 million.
Dr. Lynde framed the relevant market as the domestic market for casino-grade automatic card shufflers. He determined that the defendant wielded market power by virtue of its near monopoly market position in the relevant market. Finally, Dr. Lynde calculated a range of lost profits Shuffle Tech and three other entities incurred based on a likely growth path and revenue stream that they could have accrued but for the patent litigation by SHFL that forced them to leave the market.
After a ten-day trial, the jury found in favor of Shuffle Tech and three other companies using Dr. Lynde’s damages number of $105 million. The judge trebled the jury’s award of $105 million to $315 million.
San Francisco
