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August Update on Upcoming D. Del. Jury Trials

Emily DiBenedetto, Aug. 12, 2021
COVID-19 Trial Calendar

Autumn trials are adding up
Kelly Sikkema, Unsplash

The District of Delaware has many more jury trials scheduled in the next two months than it has in recent months, and several of the upcoming trials were originally postponed for COVID-19 reasons. The September calendar looks particularly busy at the moment, but several case dockets indicate steps toward resolving before trial, suggesting that several of these trials may not be on the calendar much longer.

Remaining August Jury Trials

District of Delaware continues to permit multiple simultaneous jury trials, as evidenced by the three trials to begin on the same day this month:

  • 8/16/2021: McClanahan v. Priority 1 Air Rescue Operations Arizona, LP., et al., C.A. 18-1237-CFC-SRF (D. Del.): …
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A Very Long Deposition

Nathan R. Hoeschen, Aug. 12, 2021
Depositions

Technical difficulties
Technical difficulties Glitch While Streaming, Michael Dziedzic, Unsplash

As we've previously discussed the district's local rules and longstanding practice prohibit speaking to a witness about the substance of his testimony during a deposition. Specifically, D. Del. local rule 30.6 states:

From the commencement until the conclusion of deposition questioning by an opposing party, including any recesses or continuances, counsel for the deponent shall not consult or confer with the deponent regarding the substance of the testimony already given or anticipated to be given, except for the purpose of conferring on whether to assert a privilege against testifying or on how to comply with a court order.

Normally, the application of this rule is pretty straightforward. But what …

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"You Get What You Give": Contention Discovery in Delaware

David M. Fry, Aug. 11, 2021
Motion to Compel Contentions

Tug of War
Merritt Thomas, Unsplash

For many years, the prevailing view in D. Del. has been that "you get what you give" when it comes to contention discovery. In other words, if you want a defendant to serve detailed non-infringement contentions, your infringement contentions should have a similar level of detail.

This standard is built into several of the judges' form scheduling orders, including Judges Stark, Noreika, Burke, Fallon, and Hall. For example, Judge Burke's form provides that:

In the absence of agreement of the parties, contention interrogatories, if filed, shall first be addressed by the party with the burden of proof. The adequacy of all interrogatory answers shall, in part, be judged by the level of detail each party provides; i.e., the more detail a party provides, the more detail a party shall receive.

On Monday, Judge Burke issued an order illustrating the implications of this standard (and the importance of serving detailed contentions).

A defendant moved to compel a response to an interrogatory seeking the plaintiff's detailed validity contentions. Judge Burke granted the motion, but with a catch:

As for the portion of ROG 15 that asks ...
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Covenant Not to Sue Results In Dismissal With Prejudice

Jeff Castellano, Aug. 10, 2021
Covenant Dismissal

Although a plaintiff may seek to dismiss its claims of infringement without prejudice after providing a covenant not to sue, the Court has discretion to impose a dismissal with prejudice, depending on the terms of the covenant and other factors.

In that vein, the plaintiff in a patent infringement suit pending before Judge Andrews argued "that the Court should dismiss its infringement claims without prejudice because the covenant it has provided to [defendant] CSL prevents their reassertion." Judge Andrews rejected this "paradoxical" argument ...

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Judge Andrews Reverses Magistrate Judge's Finding of Prosecution Disclaimer

Andrew E. Russell, Aug. 9, 2021
Magistrate Judges Claim Construction

This remote definitely can't decode compressed video streams by itself.
This remote definitely can't decode compressed video streams by itself. Glenn Carstens-Peters, Unsplash

Prosecution disclaimer can be tough to prove. Practiced prosecution counsel seem to know how to phrase things in such a way that a patent examiner understands them to be different from the claimed invention, but a later court may still find the opposite.

In an opinion today, Judge Andrews reversed a prosecution disclaimer finding by Magistrate Judge Fallon. The patent claims involves a "tethered digital butler" that can perform smartphone-like functions in a lower-cost way by using cheaper hardware that may be "tethered" to a desktop computer, which takes care of the heavy lifting.

Specifically, the claims discuss a "palm held remote," and the parties disputed …

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How Many Hours of Trial Time Do You Get For a Five-Day Jury Trial? Fewer Than You Might Think

Andrew E. Russell, Aug. 6, 2021
Trial KB

Chalkboard Math
Roman Mager, Unsplash

By default, patent cases in Delaware are typically scheduled for a five-day jury trial in the initial scheduling order. Sometimes, however, it seems that parties don't give any further thought about what the actually means until they need to file a pretrial order much later in the case.

Delaware jury trials are strictly timed. Those who are less familiar with how jury trials typically go may expect that they'll have more time than they really will. A simple back-of-the-envelope calculation by someone who is not in-the-know might be:

40 hours per week / 2 sides = 20 hours per side

That would be wrong. The actual, practical number of hours per side for a five-day patent …

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Uncertain Times (ANDA Amendments)

Nathan R. Hoeschen, Aug. 5, 2021
ANDA Stay

ANDA litigation can be an odd beast. You file a case based on a product that a defendant has only applied to manufacture—what then, when the FDA requires an amendment? What of the litigation that may be years in the making and heading into the home stretch?

The somewhat tortured history of Biodelivery Sciences International, Inc. et al. v. Chemo Research, S.L., C.A. No. 19-444-CFC-CJB, gives us several examples of exactly how the Court deals with this situation.

An Early Change to an ANDA Does Not Warrant a New Trial Date

Early on in that case (about 6 months after the scheduling order was entered) one of the defendants—Chemo—received a complete response letter ("CRL") from the FDA requiring them …

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Judge Stark Bars Late-Disclosed Witnesses from Trial

David M. Fry, Aug. 4, 2021
Pennypack MIL

Ref
Nathan Shively, Unsplash

We've written several times about the Pennypack factors—the Third Circuit standard for determining whether to exclude late-disclosed evidence. Although the standard itself is fairly lenient (focusing on prejudice and whether it can be cured), the D. Del. judges have shown an increasing willingness to exclude evidence under Pennypack in recent years.

Earlier today, for example, Judge Stark applied Pennypack to preclude four witnesses from testifying at an upcoming jury trial (two from each side). The witnesses were disclosed months after the close of fact discovery, and Judge Stark refused to force the parties to use their limited trial prep time for clean-up discovery: "there is not sufficient time in the 12 remaining days before trial …

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D. Del. Permits "Novel Theory" of Induced Patent Infringement Against Health Insurer on a Method-of-Use Claim for a Generic Drug

Andrew E. Russell, Aug. 3, 2021
Generic Drug

Pills
Christina Victoria Craft, Unsplash

Magistrate Judge Hall issued an R&R today recommending that the Court deny a motion to dismiss an inducement claim against a health insurer relating to a method-of-use claim for a generic drug.

The complaint alleges that, despite knowing that the plaintiff had a method-of-use claim for a specific treatment, the insurer nonetheless covered the patented treatment at a lower cost to patients than treatment with the name-brand drug:

The thrust of the allegations against [the insurer] Health Net are (1) that it provides coverage and payment for [co-defendant] Hikma’s generic product even in cases where Health Net actually knows that a particular beneficiary is using the generic version for an unapproved—and allegedly infringing . . …
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Judge Andrews Gives His Thoughts on Privilege of Pre-Litigation Scientific Testing Results, Strikes "Unsolicited" Declarations

Andrew E. Russell, Aug. 2, 2021
Privilege Litigation

Science!
Hans Reniers, Unsplash

On Friday, Judge Andrews issued an opinion adopting a Special Master opinion, which held that certain pre-litigation testing documents were not covered by attorney privilege.

Pre-Litigation Testing Not Protected by Attorney-Client Privilege If Not Provided to Attorneys

The Court found that the pre-litigation scientific testing was not covered by attorney-client privilege, even though they may have been done "at the direction of" a law firm, because the core purpose was for the client's understanding rather than for facilitating legal advice:

I do not think [plaintiff] First Quality has shown that the attorney-client privilege applies to any of the [relevant] disputed . . . documents. Plaintiff's position is that everything [the expert] Dr. Malburg did falls "well …
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