“Because he’s looking at one component of the system — internet access — and even if it’s true NCR directed its customers to perform, maybe maintaining internet access isn’t enough,” Judge Stoll said. “It has to be that you would under Centillion direct and control beneficial use of the entire system.”
The Texas federal jury handed down the $13 million verdict in 2021 after finding that Atlanta-based NCR had infringed a pair of patents that cover point-of-sale technology and belonged to patent holding company CloudofChange. The jury found that NCR had infringed “every single claim” of the two patents and kiboshed the company’s invalidity argument at the same time.
U.S. District Judge Alan Albright oversaw the case and is the one who, a year later, refused to overturn the jury verdict based on the argument that the jury was given incorrect instructions, resulting in the current appeal.
“When the instruction is read as a whole, it instructs the jury that to find infringement, the jury must analyze each and every element, or requirement, of a claim, and that use follows the same analysis,” Judge Albright said at the time. “NCR’s argument simply does not reflect the language of the jury instructions as to literal infringement.”
