An Eastern District of Texas jury has returned a verdict for Force MOS Technology and against ASUSTek Computer. Per the verdict, Force MOS prevailed on inventorship and invalidity questions as to one of the two patents tried, both of which the jury found infringed, willfully, to the tune of $10.5M, characterized as the “sum of money, if paid now in cash” to “compensate [Force MOS] for its damages as to any infringement found”. This result follows Chief Judge Rodney Gilstrap precluding Force MOS from using an alter ego theory of infringement to combat ASUSTek’s late-breaking argument that Force MOS had sued the wrong party.

In denying a Force MOS Technology motion for summary judgment on the issue, Eastern District of Texas Chief Judge Rodney Gilstrap has sent the plaintiff to trial against ASUSTek Computer unable to argue direct infringement based on an alter ego theory concerning its subsidiaries. Last month, as Judge Gilstrap notes, Western District of Texas Judge Alan D. Albright entered judgment, based on a jury verdict, for ACQIS LLC and against ASUSTek Computer on just such a theory. Despite dinging ASUSTek’s failure to disclose this defense in a timely fashion as “vexatious” and as “work[ing] a hardship on Plaintiff and the Court”, Judge Gilstrap will keep an alter ego theory out of the trial before him because Force MOS “chose to lay behind the log”, then “chose to stay hidden behind the log”, only “coming out from behind the log at the eleventh-hour of this case”.