A Blog About Intellectual Property Litigation and the District of Delaware


Entries for tag: Stipulation

As frequent readers of this blog already know, some judges in Delaware have limited parties to a total of 10 terms for construction across all asserted patents.

We've noted at least one previous instance where Chief Judge Connolly seemed to limit the parties to 10 claim construction disputes. Last week, the Court made an even clearer statement on the issue.

The parties in MG FreeSites Ltd v. ScorpCast, LLC, C.A. No. 20-1012-CFC-JLH (D. Del.) filed their joint claim chart in advance of claim construction, and listed 15 terms in dispute. They also included a footnote smartly noting Chief Judge Connolly's practice not to permit argument on indefiniteness at the claim construction stage.

They then filed a stipulation …

Parties in Delaware can generally freely stipulate to many things that don't directly impact the Court, including common things like schedule adjustments, authenticity of documents, protective orders, and ESI procedures—as long as you stay away from trouble spots like increasing page limits or dates for dispositive motions or trial. But every once in a while a stipulation is denied, and it's always interesting when and why that happens.

Last month, the parties in ImmerVision, Inc. v. LG Electronics U.S.A., Inc., 18-1630-MN-CJB (D. Del.) filed a stipulation staying the action pending the outcome of objections to the magistrate judge's claim construction R&R. They noted that, if the R&R is adopted, plaintiff would stipulate to non-infringement and the …

robert-anasch-ZFYg5jTvB4A-unsplash
Robert Anasch, Unsplash

As we've discussed at length, judges in the District of Delaware will usually let parties stipulate to reasonable adjustments to the case schedule, within certain limitations (including that stipulating to change the dispositive motion deadline may in some instances lead to the loss of the parties' trial date).

So it's always interesting to see when a stipulation is denied. In Osteoplastics, LLC v. Conformis, Inc., C.A. No. 20-405-MN-JLH (D. Del.), just before the close of fact discovery, the parties stipulated to a roughly 5 month delay in the remainder of the case. As the parties explain in the stip, the purpose of the delay is to provide the Court time to rule …

You may not realize the dangers with certain stips.
You may not realize the dangers with certain stips. Andrew E. Russell, CC BY 2.0

It was a bit of a slow week as far as opinions from the District of Delaware, so I wanted to write a short post about stipulations, covering a few questions that sometimes come up.

What Can You Do by Stipulation in D. Del.?

In the District of Delaware, most litigation-related matters or facts can potentially be stipulated to. This includes, most commonly, extensions of deadlines. Parties routinely file, and the Court routinely grants, stipulations extending time for things like answer deadlines, deadlines to file a scheduling order, and protective order deadlines. Parties likewise routinely stipulate to the amendment of pleadings, FRCP 41 dismissals, …