The world's biggest seller of gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles, Toyota Motor Corp., lost an appeals court bid to overturn a $4.23 million jury verdict over patents for their drive trains.
A U.S. appeals court upheld part of Paice LLC's lawsuit against Toyota Motor Corp. for patent infringement yesterday but told the lower court to reconsider damages of $25 (U.S.) per infringing car sold.
The District Court in the Eastern District of Texas had disagreed with Paice on two of the patents but found that Toyota did infringe one. It awarded Paice $25 for each Prius II, Toyota Highlander or Lexus RX400H sold.
Paice, based in McLean, Virginia, sued Toyota in 2004, claiming infringement of three patents. The Toyota City, Japan- based company won on two of the patents in the December 2005 trial and lost on a third, for use of a microprocessor to accept torque information from both the internal combustion engine and electric motor.
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