A jury of 12 good persons and true granted Ultratec $5.4 million in damages for infringement of its closed-caption telephone patent. What is interesting is how the jury came up with $5.4 million. In its decision, the jury rejected a one-time lump sum payment to the plaintiff and decided on a per-minute royalty fee of three cents a minute. Royalties can be based on dollar sales, unit sales, or any other measure of volume of sales for the infringing product or service. So, the jury found, for the 181,449,487 infringing minutes, Sorenson Communications, Inc. et al owes Ultratec Inc. et al $5,443,484.61. A nice round number.
