DeForest McDuff, Ph.D.
Partner
Phone: 919-446-5755
Raleigh-Durham, NC
DeForest McDuff, Ph.D. is a Princeton-trained economist, assistant professor of economics, and experienced expert witness in economics, business, damages, competition, antitrust, and other areas. Dr. McDuff’s opinions have been cited and relied upon by clients, courts, and government agencies. Dr. McDuff has been named as a top expert witness in the IAM Patent 1000 since 2020. Dr. McDuff co-founded Insight Economics in 2017.
Dr. McDuff provides economic consulting and testimony in many areas, including:
• Economic damages: lost profits, unjust enrichment, reasonable royalty, loss of value, loss of reputation, business impact, and other issues
• Intellectual property: patents, trademarks, trade secrets, copyrights, licensing
• Antitrust: monopolization, price discrimination, tying, price fixing, mergers
• Competition: economic harm, market definition, unfair competition, false advertising
• Legal issues: class action, class certification, irreparable harm, commercial success
• Other areas: valuation, financial analysis, labor, employment, lost wages, and more
Dr. McDuff’s expert witness experience includes more than 125 expert reports, 75 expert depositions, and 25 trials and hearings in courts across the country. His consulting experience outside the courtroom includes regulatory analysis, fair market valuation, licensing, negotiation, pricing, business strategy, product launches, strategic analysis, and a range of other topics.
Dr. McDuff is appointed and serves as an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. McDuff earned a Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton University, where he received a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship for his academic research in financial economics and applied microeconomics (awarded to 25 graduate students in economics nationwide each year). Dr. McDuff has published in peer-reviewed academic journals and widely reviewed industry publications. Dr. McDuff graduated summa cum laude with bachelor’s degrees in economics and mathematics from the University of Maryland.
Dr. McDuff is also the co-founder of Integrity Seminars, an online company dedicated to teaching academic integrity to college students since 2006. The company offers the Academic Integrity Seminar, which is a personalized online educational intervention administered to more than 100 colleges and universities nationwide to promote the importance of social trust and mutual obligation in academic, economic, and personal relationships.
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Dr. McDuff’s recent expert analysis and testimony include the following:
• Economic damages resulting from business impact, lost sales, unfair competition, and other conduct;
• Patent damages involving lost profits and reasonable royalties in a wide variety of industries;
• Class certification and damages in antitrust, false advertising, product liability, and other areas;
• Commercial success analysis in ANDA litigations and IPR hearings at the US Patent and Trademark Office;
• Blocking patent analysis for commercial success and other secondary considerations (i.e., analysis per Acorda);
• Antitrust harm and damages, including monopolization, Robinson-Patman, price fixing, and other conduct;
• Irreparable harm analysis related to potential product injunctions;
• Economic harm and prejudice analysis related to laches defenses and other areas;
• Trademark valuation and damages involving lost profits, unjust enrichment, and reasonable royalties;
• Trade secret misappropriation involving lost profits, unjust enrichment, and reasonable royalties;
• Damages for at-risk generic drug launches with hundreds of millions of dollars at issue;
• Regulatory compliance and analysis of fair market valuation (e.g., RESPA, business strategy);
• Economic analysis of licensing, negotiation, and strategic business decisions;
• Valuation methodologies for intellectual property and other assets.
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Dr. McDuff’s project experience includes the following:
• Litigation
◦ Economic damages
◦ Class certification
◦ Preliminary injunctions
◦ Irreparable harm
◦ Balance of hardships
◦ Benefit to society
◦ Economic harm for laches
◦ Domestic industry in ITC litigation
• Intellectual property
◦ Patent damages
◦ Lost profits
◦ Reasonable royalty
◦ Trade secret misappropriation
◦ Trademark infringement
◦ Commercial success
◦ Blocking patents
◦ Long-felt need
◦ Copying
◦ Other secondary considerations
• Antitrust
◦ Market definition
◦ Mergers
◦ Monopolization
◦ Robinson-Patman
◦ Price discrimination
◦ Price fixing
◦ Tying
• Competition
◦ Unfair competition
◦ False advertising
◦ Market definition
◦ Competition analysis
◦ Actual harm
◦ Unjust enrichment
• And much more
◦ Valuation
◦ Financial analysis
◦ Business impact analysis
◦ Licensing analysis
◦ Royalty analysis
◦ Labor and employment
◦ Breach of contract
◦ Strategic negotiation
◦ Product launches
◦ Market projections
◦ Pricing evaluation
◦ and more…
Dr. McDuff named as Top National Expert Witness by IAM
The IAM Patent 1000 identifies top expert witnesses for patent analysis nationwide, stating: “Economic analysis often plays a crucial role in IP litigation, whether relating to the question of reasonable efforts in licensing disputes, commercial success in disagreements over patentability or most importantly, the quantum of damages to be paid for lost profits and as a reasonable royalty in infringement suits. Given the importance of patents as business assets and the significant sums at stake in compensation battles, choosing the right expert witness is imperative.”
IAM named Dr. McDuff as a top expert witness in 2020, stating that he “stays current on the law and has often helped to positively develop it by playing frontline roles in crucial cases…” and “really digs in to present credible, cogent analyses that move the needle.”
Insight Economics congratulates all experts named to the IAM Patent 1000.