A Blog About Intellectual Property Litigation and the District of Delaware


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CDC / Alissa Eckert, MS; Dan Higgins, MAMS

Right now, the District of Delaware has continued all jury trials and jury selection scheduled before June 30, 2020 in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. And while the Court's standing order does not require judges to hold pending oral arguments telephonically or by video, that has been the practice thus far. Shaw Keller has a great summary page.

Delaware State Courts Reopening

The Delaware state courthouses and their administrative offices have been closed to the public since March 23. Their COVID-19 page is here....

Judge Andrews today rejected a portion of a defendant's objections to an R&R because the defendant set forth its objections in "a footnote, which purport[ed] to include about eight pages of the earlier briefing." Sapp et al v. Industrial Action Services, LLC et al, No. 19-912-RGA, at 10 (D. Del. May 29, 2020) (emphasis added).

He held—perhaps not surprisingly—that this "is an insufficient objection." Id.

That said, he did sustain the same defendant's objections to other portions of Magistrate Judge Burke's R&R, although he called the underlying legal issue a "close call." Id. at 8.

Today, Chief Judge Stark scheduled an in-person hearing for July 1, 2020—one day after the expiration of the current standing order re: COVID-19.

The Court's current standing order does not preclude in-person hearings, but the Court has been holding hearings telephonically or by video conference during the pandemic. This order shows that the Court--or at least Chief Judge Stark—is hoping to restart some in-person hearings relatively soon.

The full text of the Court's oral order is:

ORAL ORDER: IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the Court will hear argument on the post-trial motions on July 1, 2020 beginning at 1:00 p.m. Each side will be allocated up to one (1) hour to present its argument. This hearing is tentatively scheduled to …