Vasu Holdings, LLC v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Samsung Electronics America, Inc.

Summary

The court denied Defendants’ motion to strike portions of Vasu Holdings’ damages expert Jim W. Bergman’s report. The court held that Bergman’s use of an SEC-SEA profit-sharing agreement as a starting point for his hypothetical-negotiation analysis was sufficiently reliable and did not create an impermissible analytical gap. The court also declined to strike portions of the report relying on another expert’s report.

Holdings

1. The opinions were sufficiently reliable and relevant for admission because the SEC-SEA agreement served as a starting point rather than the sole basis for the conclusions, and Bergman used additional evidence and analysis to bridge the connection to the hypothetical negotiations.
2. The challenged portions were not stricken because the court had denied the motion challenging Dr. Groehn's extra-profit-per-unit calculation, and Defendants offered the same grounds against Bergman's reliance on that report.

Questions Presented

1. Whether portions of Vasu damages expert Jim W. Bergman's report should be stricken under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert because his reliance on the SEC-SEA profit-sharing agreement was allegedly arbitrary, unreliable, and insufficiently connected to the hypothetical license negotiations.
2. Whether portions of Bergman's report relying on Dr. Groehn's report should be stricken on the same grounds asserted in the separate motion challenging Groehn's report.

Disposition

denied