Federal Circuit Reverses LED Patent Verdict, Emphasizes On-Sale Bar and Apportionment Principles
On July 28, 2025, the Federal Circuit issued a decision in Jiaxing Super Lighting Electric Appliance Co. v. CH Lighting Technology Co., Ltd., No. 23-1715, that vacates a nearly $15 million jury award and clarifies two important doctrines in patent law: the on-sale bar and the apportionment requirement in damages analysis.
Super Lighting sued CH Lighting for infringement of three patents related to LED tube lamps. Two patents, the ’125 and ’540 patents, claimed structural features of LED tubes, while the third, the ’140 patent, claimed an installation-shock protection circuit. CH Lighting conceded infringement of the structural patents but challenged their validity based on prior sales of similar products. A jury ultimately found all three patents valid and infringed, awarding damages based in part on a “hypothetical negotiation” analysis using the entire accused product as the royalty base.
The district court rejected CH Lighting’s invalidity arguments as a matter of law, excluded key prior art and testimony, and upheld the damages award.
The Federal Circuit reversed in part, remanding for a new trial on the validity of the ’125 and ’540 patents. The court held that the district court improperly excluded evidence showing that accused MaxLite tubes were on sale more than a year before the patents’ effective filing dates. Notably, the court found that a substitute witness should have been allowed to authenticate key MaxLite documents and that a PowerPoint presentation showing early third-party products was relevant to the on-sale bar and not limited to inequitable conduct.
As to the ’140 patent, the court affirmed the jury’s findings of infringement and no invalidity. However, it vacated the entire damages award based on faulty apportionment.
Apportionment is a fundamental principle in patent damages. When a patented feature is only one part of a multi-component product, a patentee must apportion damages to reflect the value attributable to the patented feature, not the entire product. As the Federal Circuit emphasized, patentees may not simply apply a royalty to the entire market value of the accused product unless they can show that the patented feature drives demand for the whole product.
Here, Super Lighting's damages expert used the entire value of the LED tubes as the royalty base without adequately tying that base to the value of the claimed inventions. Because the patented shock-protection circuit and tube structure were only part of what made the accused products valuable, the Federal Circuit held that the damages calculation was legally flawed.
This case reinforces two critical rules in patent litigation. First, the on-sale bar is a potent defense, and courts must fairly consider all relevant evidence of prior sales or offers for sale, even from third parties. Second, apportionment is generally mandatory. “In the context of patent damages, we have repeatedly explained that the damages expert must apportion among licenses.” Id. (citing Apple Inc. v. Wi-LAN Inc., 25 F.4th 960, 971 (Fed. Cir. 2022)).
The decision continues the Federal Circuit’s trend of tightening the standards for proving both validity and damages, especially in crowded technology fields like LED lighting. Litigants should be prepared to address apportionment early in the case and ensure any royalty base is firmly grounded in the contribution of the patented invention alone.
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