As we’ve said before, sufficiency of each parties’ contentions can vary a bit by judge, and holdings are difficult to research because they usually appear in discovery dispute teleconference transcripts that are not posted to the dockets.
However, we saw a written decision issued by Judge Burke last week that illuminated one of the Court’s potential approaches to a dispute over invalidity contentions. The Court proposed that, if Plaintiff would agree to narrow its claims, the Court would require defendants to reduce the number of combinations. When Plaintiffs refused, they still received relief, but it wasn’t as strong or as specific as the relief they might have gotten had they adopted the Court’s proposal.
Plaintiffs complained that Defendants’ response to a contention interrogatory was unduly vague and insufficiently fulsome. The interrogatory sought invalidity contentions under § 103 obviousness, and the response incorporated Defendants’ Joint Initial Invalidity Contentions, so the Court focused on the Initial Invalidity Contention document itself for its analysis.
The Court found that the Initial Invalidity Contentions were sufficient in most respects:
In general, they provide real detail, including significant specificity as to ...