Continued on Page D4 question in which the jury had accepted a crucial defense point of Xerox.

He was referring, to the jury's response when asked if SCM could have avoided any damages resulting from its exclusion from the copier field by simply filing suit earlier. It responded “yes.”

Reducing Recoverable Damages

While the amount of damages that SCM can recover appears to be sharply reduced, Judge Newman will presumably have the power at a later date to invoke other sanctions against Xerox because of the ruling that it had maintained an illegal monopoly.

SCM charged in its suit, filed in 1973, that Xerox had created a monopoly by refusing to license the patents it had acquired with the intent to exclude competition and thereby control prices.

Xerox created, SCM alleged, a “patent thicket,” acquiring some 1,700 patents and using just a few of them while the rest were kept inactive.

In the early 1960's, SCM started producing coated‐paper copiers. When the corporation sought a license agreement to produce the more popular plain‐paper copier, Xerox refused to sell access to the patents it held.

Using hypothetical manufacturing, marketing and financial data, SCM estimated that it would have earned $219 million through'1976 if it had been able to enter the plain‐paper field in 1967. It further contended that its exist- ing copier division would have earned $247.5 million, instead of losing $40.5 million over the period.

The claims added up to $507 million, the amount in damages sought by SCM. This would be tripled under antitrust statutes.