A team of Paul, Weiss lawyers, alongside co-counsel, delivered a significant appellate victory for Altria, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a judgment awarding Altria more than $95.2 million in damages, along with an ongoing royalty through the life of the patents, based on a jury verdict finding that rival R.J. Reynolds (RJR) had infringed Altria’s e-vapor patents and that the asserted patents are valid.

In 2020, Altria sued RJR in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, claiming that RJR infringed patents covering Altria’s development of a novel e-vapor “pod” format, which Altria contended had been copied for RJR’s popular Vuse Alto product. RJR asked the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) to institute inter partes review proceedings to invalidate the asserted patents; the PTAB declined to even institute proceedings. Following extensive pre-trial proceedings, the case proceeded to a seven-day jury trial in 2022, during which RJR presented non-infringement and patent invalidity defenses and disputed Altria’s damages theory. The 10-person jury returned a unanimous verdict after only three hours in favor of Altria and awarded the full amount of damages requested. After denying RJR’s motions for judgment as a matter of law and for a new trial, the district court entered a judgment for past damages and an ongoing royalty.

RJR appealed to the Federal Circuit concerning the district court’s denial of RJR’s judgment as a matter of law motion regarding infringement; the district court’s exclusion of evidence that RJR intended to use to support its patent invalidity defense; and the district court’s denial of RJR’s request for judgment as a matter of law and a new trial as to the amount of damages awarded by the jury. The Federal Circuit affirmed the judgment, finding that infringement was supported by sufficient evidence, that the district court had not abused its discretion in excluding evidence, and that the damages award was supported by sufficient evidence and not the result of an improper instruction of law.

The Paul, Weiss team includes litigation partners Elizabeth Weiswasser, Anish Desai, Sutton Ansley and Priyata Patel and counsel Mandy Branch and Matthew Sieger.