Applera Corp. v. MP BIOMEDICALS, LLC

Following a bench trial, the court below awarded plaintiff Applera Corporation $1,125,195 in contract damages based on defendant MP Biomedicals, LLC’s failure to pay royalties on products sold under a patent licensing agreement. Defendant appeals the judgment, claiming the court erred in spectacular fashion by allowing the wrong plaintiff (standing is contested, as plaintiff is an assignee of the patent owner) to sue the wrong defendant (defendant is the ultimate parent corporation of a French entity that manufactured the licensed products at issue) in the wrong court (federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction over cases in which the plaintiff’s right to relief necessarily depends on resolution of a substantial question of federal patent law). Not to be outdone, plaintiff cross-appeals, asserting the court awarded it too little in actual damages and improperly refused to tack on an award of attorney fees to the judgment. We affirm the judgment in its entirety, but reverse the postjudgment order denying plaintiff’s request for an award of attorney fees.

FACTS

As a matter of substantive contract law, this is an extraordinarily simple case. The parties acknowledge the…