Medtronic Navigation, Inc. et al. v. BrainLAB Inc. et al.
Economic Advice in Litigation
The Situation
In the early 1990s, Surgical Navigation Technologies, Inc. (now Medtronic Navigation) developed and began selling image-guided surgery systems that could track surgical instruments in the hand of the surgeon and display the exact location of the instrument in relation to the patient's body and prior body scans. The invention freed surgeons from the need to attach a cumbersome metal frame to a patient's head in order to use surgical instruments with precision, and the company's patented "StealthStation" systems quickly became a commercial success. In 1996, BrainLAB started selling its "VectorVision" image-guided surgery system in the US. Medtronic Navigation contended that the BrainLAB systems infringed several patents and filed suit in US District Court in Colorado in 1998. The case was tried before a Denver jury in September 2005.
NERA's Role
NERA was asked to calculate the damages caused by the alleged infringement. NERA Senior Vice President and Intellectual Property Practice Chair Dr. Marion Stewart testified that a reasonable royalty to compensate for the infringement would be $50,794,770.
The Result
On 30 September 2005, the jury concluded that BrainLAB had infringed four patents and awarded $51 million in damages.
