SAP secures complete victory after two EDTX patent trials
Client(s) SAP SE
Jones Day obtained a complete victory for SAP SE ("SAP") in a patent infringement suit brought by Cyandia, Inc. ("Cyandia") in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division. After a bench trial, the court held that Cyandia is estopped from enforcing the patents against SAP and entered judgment that Cyandia takes nothing from SAP.
Cyandia alleged that SAP willfully infringed its patents relating to software user interfaces, emphasizing meetings it had with SAP in 2015 and 2016. During those meetings, Cyandia's CEO offered to sell the patents to SAP or partner with SAP. SAP declined. Eight years later, without any further engagement with SAP, Cyandia filed its patent infringement suit, seeking past damages totaling several hundred million dollars.
Cyandia initially sought hundreds of millions of dollars in damages against SAP. Jones Day systematically dismantled Cyandia's damages case through multiple rounds of pretrial challenges to Cyandia's experts' opinions. After the Firm's first set of challenges, the court excluded Cyandia's technical expert's apportionment analysis as "so lacking as to require that it be struck" and excluded the damages expert's original opinions for improperly comparing "apples to oranges." When Cyandia's experts submitted supplemental reports advancing an even larger damages theory, Jones Day showed that the experts had disregarded the court's guidance, and the court again struck the reports and denied reconsideration. As a result, Cyandia's expert was limited by the court to only be able to seek $16.8 million—a fraction of its original demand.
In April 2026, a jury found that SAP willfully infringed the patents and awarded Cyandia $17 million. However, following a subsequent bench trial in May 2026 to adjudicate SAP's equitable defenses, the court agreed with SAP. On July 14, 2026, the court found that Cyandia knew, or should have known, of SAP's alleged infringement as early as 2015, that Cyandia's conduct was misleading, and that SAP reasonably relied on that conduct to its material prejudice. The court also found that Cyandia's conduct independently barred its claims under the doctrine of acquiescence.
Notwithstanding the jury's verdict, the court held that Cyandia is estopped from enforcing the patents against SAP and entered judgment that Cyandia takes nothing from SAP—turning a $17 million damages award with a threat of future royalties into a complete defense win.
Cyandia v. SAP America et al., No. 2-24-cv-00096 (E.D. Tex.)
