The jury in the Chicago court deemed that the Scientific Games must pay damaged amounting to US$105 million to a group of three companies –Shuffle Tech International, Aces Up Gaming and Poydras-Talrick Holdings – but the damages were automatically tripled under US antitrust law.
Shuffle Tech is due to receive US$135m, Poydras-Talrick is due US$75m, Aces Up was awarded US$45m and Shuffle Tech, as an assignee of DigiDeal Corp, is due to receive US$60m.
The court decided that Scientific Games had started a frivolous patent lawsuit with the objective of gaining control of the market for automatic card-shufflers at casinos.
“The company believes the jury reached the wrong result and will seek review of both the finding of liability and the damages award both before the trial court and if necessary on appeal,” Scientific Games spokeswoman Susan Cartwright said.
The group of companies collaborated to create an automatic card shuffler in 2012, but Scientific Games filed a lawsuit to allege that the rival product had used patented technology without authorisation.
Shuffle Tech, Aces Up, and Poydras-Talrick hit back with an antitrust lawsuit in 2015 by claiming that Scientific Games had obtained patents that were too broad – and therefore invalid – by misleading the US Patent and Trademark Office. The trio also accused Scientific Games of having engaged in “sham patent litigation against any competitor that dared to market competitive card shufflers.”
Scientific Games had argued in court submissions that it did not intend to mislead the patent office and that its original lawsuit was not frivolous.
Source: GMB / Calvin Ayre
