Press Release
August 27, 2013

Goodwin Litigators Prevail in Major Patent Contempt Trial for ePlus

A team of Goodwin IP litigators won a significant victory on August 16 for client ePlus, a leading provider of IT products and services. Judge Robert E. Payne of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia found that Lawson Software was in contempt of its permanent injunction order, and that Lawson’s alleged redesign of its electronic procurement systems continued to infringe ePlus’s patent. The injunction was based on a trial victory that Goodwin obtained for ePlus in January 2011. The court ordered that Lawson pay a compensatory award of $18.2 million, plus a daily fine thereafter of $62,362 until it purges the contempt.

The court found that Lawson was in contempt because the alleged redesign was not more than colorably different from the original infringing system and still infringed ePlus’s patent, and because Lawson had unlawfully continued to provide an alternative means by which its customers could continue to use the prior infringing system that the court had expressly enjoined.