Nearly two years after the first "Section 101 Day" was held before Judge Stark and Judge Burke, Judges in this District continue to hold multi-motion, multi-case, all-day hearings on patent eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
When Judge Stark launched the hearings in early 2019, he expressed hope that they would make resolving the unending crush of Section 101 motions faster and more efficient. The hope for efficiency seems to have been borne out.
Judge Stark noted in a December 2020 order (see below) that "the Court continues to find that its experimental procedure of addressing multiple Section 101 motions from separate cases in one hearing is an efficient use of judicial resources and a beneficial tool for resolving the merits of Section 101 motions."
As for speed, the motions funneled into Judge Stark's Section 101 Day procedure have not been pending long, by historical standards, and are usually resolved via a bench ruling at the hearing.
Judging by a recent order setting a new Section 101 Day hearing for March 2021, the hearing format does not appear to have changed much since the first one in 2019. That is perhaps not surprising, given how much thought Judge Stark (and Judge Burke) put into their courtroom procedures.
Judge Stark still requires the parties to complete a pre-hearing checklist on several topics, including (i) which claims the Court should focus on, (ii) the need for claim construction, (iii) possible factual disputes, (iv) extrinsic evidence, (v) applicable precedent, and (vi) whether to push off the decision until later in the case. And he still requires counsel for all parties to be present for the entire duration of the hearing, as "the Court may call for argument on any of the 101 Motions at any time during the hearing." Judge Burke continues to jointly preside with Judge Stark for at least some of the Section 101 Day hearings, and Judge Stark still usually announces his rulings from the bench (see below December 2020 order).
The most substantial change seems to be that the hearings are proceeding remotely these days due to COVID.
Judge Noreika also periodically holds "omnibus" Section 101 hearings. Although her procedures differ somewhat from Judge Stark's, she similarly hears argument on several motions across multiple cases in a single day, and rules from the bench. She has continued to hold these omnibus hearings through 2020.
In both Judge Stark's and Judge Noreika's hearings, the motions are typically early dispositive motions (i.e., Rule 12 motions) and not summary judgment motions, presumably to keep the factual record manageable.
It seems likely that these unusual (for patent cases, at least) multi-case, multi-motion hearings will continue, at least while Section 101 motions are regularly filed early in patent cases.
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