In a redacted motion filed on Monday, Ultravision Technologies LLC, the plaintiff, asked for a new trial after a jury ruled in favor of defendants Shenzhen Absen Optoelectronic Co., Ltd. and Absen Inc. (collectively, Absen) at the conclusion of a six-day trial. The Eastern District of Texas verdict concluded that three claims of an Ultravision patent were not infringed and were invalid.
The case was filed in 2018 when Ultravision sued multiple companies for infringement of several of its patents relating to LED display panel technology. Shortly before trial, Absen unsuccessfully moved for summary judgment. Now, Ultravision has challenged several trial outcomes as unfair.
In its motion for a new trial, the plaintiff asserted that the jury’s verdict was based on an erroneous claim construction of the phrase “sealed to be waterproof.” Had the definition “not been limited to a product with an ingress protection of IP65, the record evidence would clearly have supported Ultravision’s infringement case and the infringement finding may very likely have been different,” the plaintiff argued. The error was prejudicial, the filing said, thereby warranting a new trial.
In addition, Ultravision took issue with a purportedly erroneous construction of the claim term “modular display panel.” Based upon the way the term was construed, an Ultravision expert was improperly excluded from presenting his opinions regarding the interchangeability of prior art display panels, which purportedly affected the jury finding on invalidity. Finally, Ultravision moved to modify the judgment to include a finding of non-infringement of two patents to which the parties previously stipulated to non-infringement.
Also on Monday, Ultravision filed its redacted response to Absen’s motion for attorneys’ fees. In the filing, the plaintiff argued that “nothing about Ultravision’s case against Absen was unreasonable or exceptional” under relevant law, and therefore the court should deny the motion.
Ultravision is represented by Fabricant LLP and McKool Smith P.C., and Absen is represented by Goodwin Procter LLP and Gillam & Smith LLP.
