Case: Litman v. Goldberg, Index No. 524343/2025 Court: N.Y. Sup. Ct., Kings County — Hon. Brian L. Gotlieb, J.S.C. Surviving claim: Count V — N.Y. Civil Rights Law §§ 50–51 (misappropriation of name) Prepared: April 16, 2026 Prepared for: Richard C. Litman and trial counsel Purpose: Establish the damages-baseline rule to be applied to any matter for which NGM has failed to produce the underlying accounting records.
Where NGM has failed to produce accounting records for a given matter — including suppressed Payment Allocation Reports (see Finding #50) and the Trust Register concealment (Finding #99) — damages shall be calculated using the following baseline:
C2051472_ND0000271385, Martha Long's quoted pricing communications in the 276,899-email discovery corpus, and any engagement-letter schedules produced in discovery.Rationale: The plaintiff is not to be penalized for the defendants' service deficiencies or discovery suppression. All quoted pricing shall be treated as applicable to the matters on which it was offered.
NGM's discovery production is known to be incomplete on at least three fronts:
A damages rule that required Plaintiff to produce what Defendants have concealed would reward the concealment. The $15,000 – $20,000 per patent baseline is therefore applied as the working floor.
The rate picture across NGM's institutional book of business, after today's corpus-wide sweep, is as follows. No single flat rate governs every client; three tiers are distinguishable.
| Client | Flat-Fee Appendix A in Corpus? | Documented Rate | Tier | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| KISR — Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research | ✅ 2018 + 2019 | $15,000/patent (2018) → $16,000/patent (2019) (routine U.S. non-provisional, comprehensive flat fee incl. USPTO fees) | Institutional flat-fee | website/email_attachments/C2051472_ND0000271385/KISR NGM 2018 Service Agreement Appendix A.docx; /C2051472_ND0000271635/KISR NGM 2019 Service Agreement Quotation.docx |
| Kuwait University (KU) | ❌ not in corpus | $11,300/patent (Martha Long written quote, Nov 2020 — post-SOL) | Institutional flat-fee (discounted) | Bates C2051472_ND0000004095–4098 |
| UAEU — United Arab Emirates University | ❌ | $9,530 – $13,155 initial work per patent; variable thereafter | Task-based (T&M) | website/email_attachments/C2051472_ND0000269312/UAEU Trust 7.13.2020.pdf; UAEU May 2022 SoA |
| KSU — King Saud University | ❌ | Docket invoices $1,000 – $13,000 (partial-stage billing only) | Unclear; no Appendix A documented | King Saud Trust 7.13.2020.pdf |
| KFU — King Faisal University (NGM's largest client) | ❌ (general engagement letter only, Jan 2024) | "customary rates or flat fees as agreed" — no per-patent rate documented in produced records | Unknown | Bates C2051472_ND0000236084 |
| Dasman Diabetes Institute | ❌ | Hourly (T&M) — NGM's own client list shows RATE: 'a' |
Not flat-fee | NGM_Client_List.xlsx; Payment DDI.pdf 2023 ($31,870 annual total) |
Two additional categories stack on top:
output/MARTHA_LONG_ENGAGEMENT_LETTERS_RATES_20260416.md.33087_00_Engagement Letter.pdf, Engagement Agreement.pdf, 200628_Engagement Letter.pdf) are not present in the discovery production — a separate discovery deficiency.Tier 1 — Institutional flat-fee (documented). KISR at $15K/$16K and KU at $11.3K. These are the only two clients for whom a per-patent flat rate is documented in the produced record. KISR 2019 Appendix A states that the comprehensive flat fee "saves almost $1,000" against standalone pricing — NGM's own admission that unbundled institutional standalone pricing is ~$17,000. Everything excluded from the KISR bundle (continuations, RCEs, PCT national-phase, appeals, maintenance fees) is separately billed on top.
Tier 2 — Task-based / time-and-materials. UAEU and Dasman are demonstrably billed on a per-task or hourly basis, not per patent. A per-patent damages baseline is not directly comparable for these clients; their damages computation must run on an as-billed or hourly-reconstruction basis. Quantifying these clients requires the underlying Soluno task detail that NGM has not produced.
Tier 3 — Undocumented (fee schedule not in evidence). KFU and KSU. The KFU general engagement letter references "customary rates or flat fees as agreed" but no per-patent schedule has been produced — notable given KFU is NGM's largest single client (1,067 dockets, 781 issued or allowed). KSU likewise has no Appendix A in the corpus. For these two clients specifically, the $15K – $20K baseline is the only defensible quantification absent the suppressed billing detail.
These bounds apply to the institutional flat-fee tier and to clients for whom no fee schedule has been produced (Tier 1 + Tier 3). Task-based matters (UAEU, Dasman — Tier 2) require separate per-matter computation on an as-billed basis and are not covered by the blanket application below.
| Scenario | Patent Count | Rate | Fee Base | Litman 20% Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Low (905 × $15,000) | 905 | $15,000 | $13,575,000 | $2,715,000 |
| High (905 × $20,000) | 905 | $20,000 | $18,100,000 | $3,620,000 |
| Scenario | Patent Count | Rate | Fee Base | Litman 20% Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Post-arbitration × $15K | 640 | $15,000 | $9,600,000 | $1,920,000 |
| Post-arbitration × $20K | 640 | $20,000 | $12,800,000 | $2,560,000 |
| Scenario | Patent Count | Rate | Fee Base | Litman 20% Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 × $15K | 13 | $15,000 | $195,000 | $39,000 |
| 13 × $20K | 13 | $20,000 | $260,000 | $52,000 |
Low-end defense ($15K floor). KISR 2018 sits at $15K on the nose; KU's $11.3K and individual-inventor $12K – $16K quotes confirm the real-world floor for institutional flat-fee work is ~$11K – $12K at the bottom, not below. Averaging the excluded-category separate billing (continuations, RCEs, maintenance) back into a blended per-patent rate pulls the floor up to $15K.
High-end defense ($20K ceiling). KISR 2019 at $16K + NGM's own "saves almost $1,000" admission → ~$17K standalone comprehensive. Complex matters excluded from Appendix A (continuations, RCEs, PCT, appeals — every one of which is billed separately) routinely push total per-patent cost to $20K+. $20K is a conservative ceiling on institutional bundled pricing with the excluded-category pass-throughs folded back in.
USPTO fees advanced on any given matter are additive and recoverable as out-of-pocket expense regardless of tier.
The fee baseline is additive to — and does not displace — any of the existing damages anchors in the record:
| Anchor | Amount | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Defensible floor | $424,000 – $928,000 | NGM-produced 22/24-month totals × 20% (Finding #49) |
| 21-month time-series | $1,731,898 | 21 monthly PARs × 20% (Finding #66) |
| Plaintiff's reconstructed total | $2,403,125.66 | 6/26/25 Kren report (Finding #95) |
| KFU Exhibit A total recovery | $13,933,000 | KFU unbilled + trust + unpaid 20% (Finding #51) |
| KISR 2018 / 2019 documented rate | $15,000 / $16,000 per patent | Appendix A + 2019 Quotation |
| KU Martha Long quote (Nov 2020) | $11,300 per patent | Bates C2051472_ND0000004095–4098 |
| Individual-inventor engagement band | $12K – $16K full prosecution | Martha Long 2021–2022 corpus |
| MSJ Point III published range | $6.1M – $77.9M | Compensatory + punitive spectrum |
| Fee baseline (905 × $15K–$20K) | $13.6M – $18.1M (fee base) / $2.72M – $3.62M (20%) | This memo |
Where the produced-record methodologies yield a figure for a particular matter, that figure controls. Where they do not — because the underlying records are suppressed or unavailable — the fee baseline applies as a matter of equity and of Defendants' burden as the party in possession of the billing system.
KISR Service Agreement — Flat-Fee Appendix A (2018-12-06). Bates C2051472_ND0000271385. Comprehensive flat fee USD 15,000 per routine U.S. non-provisional patent application, USPTO fees included. 2019 successor at Bates C2051472_ND0000271635 raises the comprehensive fee to USD 16,000 and itemizes the attorney-only build-up (prep $8,600 / prioritized-exam prep $500 / 4-week expedite $1,000 / prosecution $3,000 / issuance $550) plus government fees ($785 filing / $2,070 prioritized / $500 issue) and a $500 prior-art search line. Full extract: output/KISR_APPENDIX_A_RATES_EXTRACT_20260416.md.
Kuwait University — Martha Long written quote (Nov 2020). Bates C2051472_ND0000004095–4098. $11,300/patent institutional discounted flat rate.
UAEU Trust docket worksheets (2020; May 2022 SoA). website/email_attachments/C2051472_ND0000269312/UAEU Trust 7.13.2020.pdf. Task-based $9,530 – $13,155 initial-work range per patent.
Martha Long individual-inventor engagement-letter email bodies (2021–2022). Moustafa LITMAN178328; Adel Abdulla/ORGO LITMAN179923, LITMAN180797; Jonathan Martin LITMAN233820, LITMAN233829. Headline rates: $500 search + $5,000 – $12,000 application-prep + ~$2,600 prioritized-examination. The underlying PDF attachments are NOT present in the discovery production — native .msg production should be demanded for Bates C2051472_ND0000176330, _ND0000177875, _ND0000178849, _ND0000231772, _ND0000231781. Full extract: output/MARTHA_LONG_ENGAGEMENT_LETTERS_RATES_20260416.md.
Invoice record at Bates C2051472_ND0000272234. Candidate second fee-schedule document referenced by Richard Litman; content pending extraction.
KISR_APPENDIX_A_RATES_EXTRACT_20260416.md).MARTHA_LONG_ENGAGEMENT_LETTERS_RATES_20260416.md).C2051472_ND0000272234 content as the second fee-schedule document referenced by Richard Litman..msg production for the five Bates IDs listed in § 7(4).This memo is additive to the existing damages record. It does not replace the per-patent allocation model in output/DAMAGES_SUMMARY.md, the MSJ Point III brief at output/POINT_III_DAMAGES_DRAFT.md, the variance model at output/VARIANCE_DAMAGES_MODEL_VERIFIED.md, or the settlement leverage analysis at output/SETTLEMENT_LEVERAGE_MEMO_2026-04-07.md — each of which has been updated to reference this baseline rule. Cross-references: output/KISR_APPENDIX_A_RATES_EXTRACT_20260416.md, output/MARTHA_LONG_ENGAGEMENT_LETTERS_RATES_20260416.md.