On March 5, following a nine-day jury trial in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas (Houston), Sheppard secured a verdict for Impulse Downhole Solutions Ltd. and Impulse Downhole Tools USA Ltd (Impulse) that was entered by the court today. The jury awarded $47,681,477 and found that competitor Downhole Well Solutions, LLC (DWS) infringed all asserted claims of three patents—U.S. Patent Nos. 9,765,584; 9,637,976 and 11,268,337—through two accused products, PowerGLIDE and PowerGLIDE On Demand. The jury also found that DWS's infringement was willful, opening the possibility for the court to enhance the damages amount.
Sheppard filed the case in 2023 and litigated it through extensive discovery and motion practice, including a hard-fought battle just to obtain an inspection and testing of the accused DWS tools. The three-year battle leading up to trial included Sheppard overcoming DWS's 11 summary judgment and Daubert motions, underwritten through the acquisition of DWS by much-larger Innovex International. At trial, DWS argued that Impulse's testing was flawed, that mathematical analysis showed its tools could not infringe and that any damages were limited to $1.5 million. The jury rejected those arguments and returned a verdict for Impulse finding infringement, validity and willfulness.
"We enjoy competing ethically in the market with new technology to provide solutions in the oil and gas drilling market. After three years of litigation and nine days of trial, we appreciate the U.S. justice system and the jury who quickly upheld the rights of the patent inventors. We appreciate the manner in which Sheppard professionally represented Impulse and ensured protection of our IP," said Doug Kinsella, President of Impulse Downhole Tools.
"The jury sent a strong message of support for the innovators who do the experimenting and testing and put in the time to develop better solutions. Willful infringement is not a finding juries come to lightly, and it tells the court that 12 people felt this was not a case of an innocent or even merely negligent infringer—this was a case where the defendant acted wrongfully," said John Keville, lead trial counsel for Impulse.
Along with Keville, the Sheppard trial team included Michelle Replogle, Robert Green, Michael Krill, Michael Heins, Chante Westmoreland, Usayd Siddiqi and Evan Lim.
Read the verdict here.