4/24/2014· Damages
New Path For Accelerated Damages Discovery Requires Immediate Expert Assistance
By: David Nolte
The Eastern District of Texas is well known for its intense patent activity and already provides early disclosure of infringement and invalidity contentions to facilitate faster resolution of these cases. The Court has now taken similar action by providing an option for accelerated damage discovery, including requiring a two week turnaround between defendant's production of potentially infringing sales data and plaintiff's good faith estimate of damages. Accomplishing this will require expert assistance immediately in the process. Even for cases that do not settle, this damage estimate will inform the Court's discovery decisions and resource allocations.