Anker faces $20.1 million damages verdict in NEC surveillance patent dispute

Context: On September 3, 2024, Japanese technology company NEC Corporation filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Anker before the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. The lawsuit originally asserted six patents relating to image processing and video surveillance technology against Anker’s eufy security products, including video doorbells, surveillance cameras, and associated software. NEC alleged that Anker had continued operating without a license despite receiving a licensing proposal in June 2024.

What’s new: On November 12, 2026, a federal jury in the Eastern District of Texas awarded NEC $20.1 million in reasonable royalty damages after finding that Anker infringed four claims across three patents. The jury rejected Anker’s invalidity challenges under the questions submitted to it but found that the infringement was not willful. Two days earlier, Judge Rodney Gilstrap had separately rejected Anker’s patent eligibility challenge to one of NEC’s asserted claims under 35 U.S.C. § 101.

Direct impact: NEC stands to recover approximately $20.1 million from Anker, comprising $14.6 million for an information processing patent and $5.5 million for a patent covering the identification and tracking of individuals in surveillance footage. Although the jury also found infringement of a third patent involving video surveillance and machine learning, it awarded no damages for that patent following a separate finding relevant to patent eligibility. The award remains subject to post-trial motions and a potential appeal.

Wider ramifications: The case highlights how different software-related patents can face different outcomes under § 101. While the judge found that NEC’s surveillance interface patent claimed a specific technological improvement, the jury found that additional elements of a separate machine learning-related patent involved routine technology. The contrasting findings illustrate how patent eligibility questions can affect the outcome of infringement litigation.