KW Economics prepares intellectual property damages analysis for partnership and shareholder dispute cases venued in Virginia: what the loss claim consists of, the records that drive it, and a present value built to Virginia damages rules and venues. Plaintiff and defense.
In an owner dispute the intellectual property question is usually who took what: a departing partner, member, or shareholder who used the company's trade secrets, customer information, or technology in a competing venture, or a controlling owner who moved the company's patents, marks, or software into an entity the owner holds separately. The economist measures the company's actual loss from the diverted sales and customers, the competing venture's profits attributable to the information, and, where those are hard to isolate, a reasonable royalty for the use, net of any overlap, and coordinates the measure with any valuation of an owner's interest, so the same lost earnings are not counted both as damages and as a reduction in the value of the interest.
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 valuation date and the standard of value control the result: a fair value standard may exclude the minority and marketability discounts that a fair market value standard applies, and the gap between the two can be substantial for a minority interest in a closely held company. Normalizing adjustments to owner compensation and related-party dealings often decide whether the business shows earnings to value at all. Where the claim includes diverted profits, the amount depends on how far back the records permit reconstruction and on whether the business's actual results can be separated from market conditions.
Virginia has no formal gatekeeping standard for expert testimony; the court asks whether the economist is qualified by training and experience, whether the opinion rests on an adequate factual foundation rather than speculation, and whether the method is reliable, and it excludes an opinion whose assumptions the record does not support. An economic damages report is therefore built so that each input traces to the record and each rate and table to a published source.
Highest court: Supreme Court of Virginia. Court system: vacourts.gov.
Federal venues: Eastern District of Virginia, Western District of Virginia.
Virginia retains contributory negligence, so in a negligence-based claim any fault on the plaintiff's part is a complete bar rather than a percentage reduction. Prejudgment interest is awarded at the discretion of the fact finder, liquidated or not, so the report separates past from future amounts and supplies the schedule the fact finder would need. Economic damages are not subject to a general statutory limit outside the total limit that applies in medical malpractice cases, and any limit attached to a particular statutory claim is for counsel to confirm.
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.
In an owner dispute the intellectual property question is usually who took what: a departing partner, member, or shareholder who used the company's trade secrets, customer information, or technology in a competing venture, or a controlling owner who moved the company's patents, marks, or software into an entity the owner holds separately. The economist measures the company's actual loss from the diverted sales and customers, the competing venture's profits attributable to the information, and, where those are hard to isolate, a reasonable royalty for the use, net of any overlap, and coordinates the measure with any valuation of an owner's interest, so the same lost earnings are not counted both as damages and as a reduction in the value of the interest.
Virginia has no formal gatekeeping standard for expert testimony; the court asks whether the economist is qualified by training and experience, whether the opinion rests on an adequate factual foundation rather than speculation, and whether the method is reliable, and it excludes an opinion whose assumptions the record does not support. An economic damages report is therefore built so that each input traces to the record and each rate and table to a published source. Partnership and Shareholder Dispute cases venued in Virginia are heard in the Circuit Court (General jurisdiction; larger civil cases, felonies, domestic relations, equity), with final appeals to the Supreme Court of Virginia. Matters within federal jurisdiction proceed in the Eastern District of Virginia and Western District of Virginia.
Virginia retains contributory negligence, so in a negligence-based claim any fault on the plaintiff's part is a complete bar rather than a percentage reduction. Prejudgment interest is awarded at the discretion of the fact finder, liquidated or not, so the report separates past from future amounts and supplies the schedule the fact finder would need. Economic damages are not subject to a general statutory limit outside the total limit that applies in medical malpractice cases, and any limit attached to a particular statutory claim is for counsel to confirm. 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 Virginia rules to a documented figure.
Request a consultation on IP Damages or call (201) 343-0700. Plaintiff and defense counsel.