Law360, New York (May 25, 2010, 3:19 PM ET) -- The Federal Circuit has spoken. Through a series of decisions over the past year, the CAFC has clarified the standards for calculating reasonable royalty damages in patent infringement litigation. The message is clear: A reasonable royalty must appropriately reflect the contribution of the patented invention to the claimed royalty base.

While we’ve gotten the message, the question of how to implement this directive remains. Here, we briefly review three recent opinions and outline some economic approaches that may be used to quantify a patented invention’s contribution...