Rules of Evidence Crush Wi-LAN’s Patent Infringement Claims Against Vizio and Sharp

On April 6, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affirmed the decision of the United States District Court for the District of Delaware, holding that Sharp Electronics Corporation (Sharp) and Vizio Inc. did not infringe Wi-LAN, Inc.’s U.S. Patent No. 6,359,654 (“the ‘654 patent”) or U.S. Patent No. 6,490,250 (“the ‘250 patent”)…. Under Federal Rule of Evidence 703, Wi-LAN argued that their expert, who did not attempt to authenticate the source code printout, should be able to opine on the meaning of the inadmissible source code printout and provide it to the jury despite Wi-LAN’s failure to authenticate the source code printout. This argument presented two questions for the CAFC: (1) whether the source code printout was admissible because it was relied upon by the expert, and (2) whether the expert’s testimony relying on the source code was admissible to establish infringement.

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