CGGVeritas has announced a Texarkana jury found that its subsidiary Sercel Inc. infringed on United States Patent No. 5,852,242 and that ION Geophysical Corporation is entitled to $25.2 million in lost profits.
Sercel will ask the court to overturn the jury’s finding on several grounds, including ION’s failure to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the patent was infringed by Sercel and the invalidity of the patent due to ION’s failure to disclose in the patent the best way of making the invention.
The court has asked the parties to brief these issues by April, and Sercel does not expect any further action from the court until this briefing is completed.
The court had previously found the product claims of the patent invalid, and one of the claims for a method of manufacturing not infringed.
With respect to ION’s claims that the VectorSeis technology is covered by United States Patent No. 5,852,242, this issue was not resolved and continues to be a deeply contested issue.
CGGVeritas is a leading international pure-play geophysical company delivering a wide range of technologies, services and equipment through Sercel, to its broad base of customers mainly throughout the global oil and gas industry.