A Verdict Is Only as Durable as the Form That Records It

In October 2023, Ollnova Technologies Ltd. was celebrating their $11.5 million jury verdict against ecobee Technologies ULC in the Eastern District of Texas. On June 4, 2026, the Federal Circuit took it all back. The patents were not the problem nor were any of the other hurdles patent owners normally face in litigation. Here, it was the verdict form. For in-house counsel managing multi-patent litigation, the case is a clean, expensive lesson in how a structural defect on a verdict form can erase an eight-figure judgment.

The Defect

Ollnova asserted four patents at trial. Invalidity was submitted to the jury patent-by-patent and claim-by-claim. Infringement was not. Despite the parties jointly proposing patent-by-patent questions, the district court replaced them with a single combined question. The jury answered one combined question: "Did Ollnova, the Plaintiff, prove by a preponderance of the evidence that ecobee, the Defendant, infringed ANY of the Asserted Claims of the Asserted Patents?" One "Yes" covered all four patents.

ecobee argued, in the panel's words, that the form "improperly combined all Asserted Patents into a single infringement question and permitted the jury to find liability without unanimous agreement that ecobee infringed any particular claim of any patent." The Federal Circuit agreed.

Why it is Fatal

The flaw is a unanimity problem rooted in the Seventh Amendment. A single combined question, the court explained, "created an unacceptable risk of a non-unanimous general verdict." Jurors could all answer "Yes" while privately disagreeing about which patent ecobee infringed. As the panel put it, the structure "violated the defendant's right to a unanimous verdict on each legal claim against it as it related to infringement," quoting Andres v. United States for the proposition that "Unanimity in jury verdicts is required where, as here, the Seventh Amendment applies."

The remedy is not exotic. In 2025 the Federal Circuit decided Optis Cellular Technology v. Apple, where the court held that "the verdict form needed to have included, at the very least, separate infringement questions for each asserted patent."  There the court condemned the verdict form, which was materially identical to the one used in Ollnova. In deciding Ollnova the court  found "no basis to depart from Optis." That makes Ollnova the second Federal Circuit decision in roughly a year vacating an Eastern District of Texas verdict over a combined infringement question.

Points Worth Noting:

First, the parties jointly proposed a patent-by-patent form. The district court discarded it and wrote the single-question version on its own. The takeaway: securing agreement on the right form is not enough if the court overrides it. If that happens, it is critical to renew the objection on the record when the court circulates its own draft. 

Second, jury instructions could not save the verdict. Ollnova argued that the unanimity issue was cured by jury instructions that directed the jury to assess infringement on a claim-by-claim basis. The panel disagreed, reasoning that the jury “could have followed those instructions yet understood that it only needed to be unanimous as to the question presented on the verdict form," which asked about "ANY" asserted claim, not about the same patent. The court also rejected the move of reverse-engineering unanimity from the damages award, holding that "parsing the damages verdict in an effort to demonstrate unanimity does not establish that the jury actually agreed that the same patent was infringed." The takeaway: do not assume a general unanimity charge or a clean damages number will save a defective verdict form.

One footnote also flags a further exposure point: the court declined to reach whether the form needed to be broken out claim by claim, because ecobee argued only for a patent-by-patent split. A defendant who wants claim-level protection must ask for it.

Preservation

ecobee preserved the issue without ever saying "unanimity." It objected that the form was "incomplete in view of . . . evidence re[quiring] patent-by-patent analysis" and asked the court to "list each patent separately." The district court addressed the issue on the merits, which preserved it for appeal. The lesson, however, is not to rely on that grace. Instead, if faced with such a situation, it is better to state the unanimity ground expressly, cite Optis, and tender a compliant alternative form so the record is unambiguous.

The Consequence

Because a new trial on infringement is required, the court vacated the $11.5 million award, explaining that "Absent a finding of infringement at a new trial, there is no basis for an award of damages." Note what that means in practice. The lump sum was vacated, not remitted, so Ollnova returns to trial starting from zero on liability and damages alike.

Takeaways

The verdict form is a first-order appellate issue in any multi-patent case, not a clerical afterthought, and the defect cuts both ways.

• Insist on a separate infringement question for each asserted patent, and consider demanding a claim-by-claim breakdown.
• Make the objection on the record using the word "unanimity," cite Optis and Ollnova, and tender your own compliant form. Preserve the issue even if you secured an agreed form earlier, because the court can override a joint proposal, as it did here.
• Do not rely on a general unanimity instruction or the damages verdict to cure a combined question. The court rejected both, holding that parsing the damages verdict does not show the jury agreed the same patent was infringed.

The authors are patent trial lawyers and members of the Intellectual Property Litigation Group at Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth LLP. Stradling represents inventors, patent owners, and technology companies in patent licensing and litigation in U.S. District Courts and before the United States Patent and Trademark Office, including IPRs and EPRs pending before the PTAB. Whether pursuing patent violations or defending infringement claims, we are aggressive and effective advocates for our clients. For more information contact Steve Hanle at shanle@stradlinglaw.com, Greg Cordrey at gcordrey@stradlinglaw.com, or Salil Bali at sbali@stradlinglaw.com.

This alert is provided for general informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice. Please contact us to discuss the specific circumstances of your pending applications.