KW Economics prepares intellectual property damages analysis for commercial contract dispute cases venued in Texas: what the loss claim consists of, the records that drive it, and a present value built to Texas damages rules and venues. Plaintiff and defense.
A commercial contract dispute becomes an intellectual property damages question when the contract is a license: a patent, trademark, software, or technology license whose royalties were underpaid, a licensee that kept selling after the license ended, or a dispute over the royalty base, the products covered, or the audit rights. The economist reads the license and its royalty provisions, rebuilds the royalty base from the licensee's sales records and any audit findings, and computes the shortfall by period under the contract's own terms. Where a licensee kept using the technology after termination, or an infringement claim is joined with the contract claim, the economist also measures the infringement damages, often a reasonable royalty informed by the license itself, and keeps the contract and infringement measures separate.
Economic analysis and expert testimony on damages in patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret cases and in license and royalty disputes, for the patentee or the accused infringer and for either side of every other claim. The work measures each remedy the governing statute allows: a reasonable royalty and the patentee's lost profits, including price erosion, apportioned to the patented feature; the defendant's profits, the owner's actual damages, and corrective advertising in a trademark case; actual damages and the infringer's profits in a copyright case, where the infringer carries the burden of its deductible expenses and of the profit owed to other factors; and actual loss, unjust enrichment, or a reasonable royalty for a misappropriated trade secret.
The size of the claim depends on the contract's remaining term, the profit margin the business would have realized, and how much of the lost volume was or could have been replaced. Incremental cost treatment is the usual battleground: whether a given cost would have been avoided when the revenue disappeared changes the margin and therefore the loss. For a new venture or a contract without a performance history, the reasonableness of the projected revenue is the central dispute, and the period over which lost profits are claimed is scrutinized against the contract's terms and the market.
Texas trial courts act as gatekeepers for expert testimony and ask whether the economist is qualified, whether the method is reliable and accepted in the profession, and whether it was applied to the facts of the case rather than to assumptions the record does not support. A damages report meets that inquiry by stating each assumption and its source so the analytical gap the court looks for is not there.
Highest court: Supreme Court of Texas. Court system: txcourts.gov.
Federal venues: Northern District of Texas, Southern District of Texas, Eastern District of Texas, Western District of Texas.
Texas reduces a negligence-based award by the plaintiff's share of responsibility and bars recovery once that share exceeds half. Prejudgment interest accrues on past damages from a defined point after the defendant receives notice of the claim, in contract and tort alike, and is not awarded on future damages, so the report separates past from future amounts as of a fixed date. Statutory limits apply to noneconomic damages in health care liability claims while economic damages are unlimited, so the economist's figure enters the case at its full present value.
We issue the final report on the disclosure schedule and provide deposition and trial testimony, critique of the opposing damages analysis, and updated calculations as the court construes any patent claims and the record develops.
A commercial contract dispute becomes an intellectual property damages question when the contract is a license: a patent, trademark, software, or technology license whose royalties were underpaid, a licensee that kept selling after the license ended, or a dispute over the royalty base, the products covered, or the audit rights. The economist reads the license and its royalty provisions, rebuilds the royalty base from the licensee's sales records and any audit findings, and computes the shortfall by period under the contract's own terms. Where a licensee kept using the technology after termination, or an infringement claim is joined with the contract claim, the economist also measures the infringement damages, often a reasonable royalty informed by the license itself, and keeps the contract and infringement measures separate.
Texas trial courts act as gatekeepers for expert testimony and ask whether the economist is qualified, whether the method is reliable and accepted in the profession, and whether it was applied to the facts of the case rather than to assumptions the record does not support. A damages report meets that inquiry by stating each assumption and its source so the analytical gap the court looks for is not there. Commercial Contract Dispute cases venued in Texas are heard in the District Court (General jurisdiction; civil cases above the justice court threshold, felonies, domestic relations) and the County Court at Law (Statutory courts; mid-sized civil cases, misdemeanors), with final appeals to the Supreme Court of Texas. Matters within federal jurisdiction proceed in the Northern District of Texas, Southern District of Texas, Eastern District of Texas, and Western District of Texas.
Texas reduces a negligence-based award by the plaintiff's share of responsibility and bars recovery once that share exceeds half. Prejudgment interest accrues on past damages from a defined point after the defendant receives notice of the claim, in contract and tort alike, and is not awarded on future damages, so the report separates past from future amounts as of a fixed date. Statutory limits apply to noneconomic damages in health care liability claims while economic damages are unlimited, so the economist's figure enters the case at its full present value. The report presents past and future amounts separately, states every rate and table with its source, and shows the result under the alternatives the other side is likely to argue, so counsel can apply the Texas rules to a documented figure.
Request a consultation on IP Damages or call (201) 343-0700. Plaintiff and defense counsel.