By Dennis Crouch
A few days ago, I posted an essay entitled Does the Entire Market Value Rule Make Sense when Applied to Apportionment Analyses? In the essay, I discussed contemporary changes in the entire market value rule that apply the rule even in the context of damage apportionment analysis. In relation to that, I'm enjoying Michael Greene's recent student note where he suggests a new naming convention that focuses the entire market value rule to its traditional role in limiting the equitable relief of lost profits. In the apportionment context, Greene would use a different name – the entire market base rule – for the doctrine limiting the use of the entire market as the base for calculating a reasonable royalty. In the second context, any limit on the evidence would be governed by Federal Rule of Evidence 403. See Michael A. Greene, All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Towards an Appropriate Usage and Definition of the 'Entire Market Value' Rule in Reasonable Royalties Calculations, 53 Boston College Law Review 233 (2012). Mark Lemley's 2009 article also provides an excellent introduction to the issue. Mark A. Lemley, Distinguishing Lost Profits from Reasonable Royalties, 51 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 655 (2009). Funny tidbit – the Lemley article criticizes the Federal Circuit Lucent decision and, at the same time, the Lucent decision criticizes the Lemley article. Michael Greene tells the story:
Amusingly, [the] Federal Circuit in Lucent cites to and gently criticizes the very Lemley article which itself criticizes the Lucent opinion as confused. Despite lacking access to a time machine, Chief Judge Paul Michel had in fact obtained access to a draft of Professor Lemley's forthcoming article that then turned around [in the final version] and criticized Judge Michel's opinion criticizing it.
Sounds a bit like some blog comments I've seen.
