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On the Perils of Not Agreeing to a Reasonable Case Management Request

Andrew E. Russell, Jan. 7, 2021
Expert Discovery Litigation

Caution Tape
Hiroshi Kimura, Unsplash

I came across this case today, and I thought it was a good example of why, in Delaware, it can be dangerous to be seen as acting unreasonably, particularly when it comes to things like discovery disputes and case management.

Plaintiffs filed a first case in 2018, asserting infringement of a single patent. Earlier this year, it filed a second case against the same defendant for a newly-issued patent relating to the same subject matter.

Plaintiffs sought to consolidate the two cases because they involved similar facts:

[The cases involve] identical parties, identical accused acts of infringement, the same accused process, and related patents with identical inventors, materially identical specifications, and overlapping claim terms.

Defendants opposed …

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Is There No Safe Harbor

Nathan R. Hoeschen, Jan. 7, 2021
Safe Harbor

Honestly, it's not a very safe harbor
Honestly, it's not a very safe harbor Youngje Park, Unsplash

Judge Burke faced an interesting hypothetical last week regarding the rarely invoked safe harbor provision of 35 U.S.C. § 271(e)(1). For those unfamiliar, the safe harbor provision provides that:

It shall not be an act of infringement to make, use, offer to sell, or sell within the United States or import into the United States a patented invention . . . solely for uses reasonably related to the development and submission of information under a Federal law which regulates the manufacture, use, or sale of drugs or veterinary biological products.

The Sole Use Question

The issue in Wilson Wolf Manufacturing Corp. v. Sarepta Therapeutics, Inc., C.A. No. 19-2316-RGA-CJB, …

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Judge Connolly Orders a Markman Do-Over

David M. Fry, Jan. 6, 2021
10 Terms Claim Construction

In a case that's been pending for years, Judge Connolly just ordered the parties to redo their three-year-old Markman briefs.

Although the parties briefed and argued claim construction at the end of 2017, Judge Sleet granted an IPR stay before a Markman opinion was issued. While the stay was in place, Judge Sleet retired and the case was reassigned to Judge Connolly.

The parties were set to argue claim construction again this week, with 18 disputed terms from the plaintiffs' patents and 26 disputed terms from the defendant's patents. But on Monday, Judge Connolly issued an oral order cancelling the Markman hearing and ordering the parties to substantially narrow their disputes (to 10 limitations for each side's patents).

He also …

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Court Rejects § 101 Motion Due to Lack of Detail in Specification: Is This the Way of the Future?

Andrew E. Russell, Jan. 4, 2021
MTD § 101

GPS Navigation
Alvaro Reyes, Unsplash

Judge Noreika issued an opinion today denying a § 101 motion on a patent that covers delivering GPS navigation information to a vehicle in a "short burst."

As to Alice step 1, the Court found that the claims were "do it on a computer" claims directed to the abstract idea of sending and receiving navigation data:

[A]t step 1, claim 1 seems focused on using computers to perform a human activity more efficiently.

At step 2, however, the Court found that the patent's bare-bones specification saved it from § 101—it's hard to find that any particular solution was conventional at the § 101 motion-to-dismiss stage when the specification simply does not discuss the prior …

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Words, Words, Words

Jeff Castellano, Dec. 29, 2020
Page Limits KB

Longstanding practice in the District of Delaware, pursuant to the Court's local rules and the Judges' form scheduling orders and other standing orders, mandated page limits for briefing.
For example, the Court's local rules set limits of 20 pages for opening, briefs 20 pages for answering briefs, and 10 pages for reply briefs, all in 12 point font. See LR 7.1.3(a)(4); LR 5.1.1(a). However, since about mid-2019, some Judges here have permitted or required word limits in lieu of page limits for some types of documents.

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Judge Fallon Rejects Novel Attempt to Use Collatoral Estoppel to Invalidate Claims Based on IPR

Andrew E. Russell, Dec. 28, 2020
Collateral Estoppel Estoppel

Sierra Nevada Mountains
Sierra Nevada Mountains Alistair Corden, Unsplash

The defendant in M2M Solutions LLC v. Sierra Wireless America, Inc., C.A. No. 14-1102-RGA (D. Del.), argued that the PTAB's previous invalidation of several claims of the plaintiff's patents in an IPR meant that the plaintiffs were collaterally estopped from asserting the validity of the remaining claims—the claims that were not invalidated—at the district court.

Defendant argued that:

  • The Federal Circuit has held that collateral estoppel applies to IPR proceedings generally;
  • The Supreme Court has held that agency decisions may have preclusive effects during later court proceedings; and
  • The Federal Circuit has extended collateral estoppel effects to unajudicated claims when there were no material differences between those and …
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You Still Can't Serve Contention Topics in D. Del.

David M. Fry, Dec. 23, 2020
Depositions Motion to Compel

For decades, judges in D. Del. have enforced a general rule that you can’t serve 30(b)(6) topics on a party’s contentions. The rationale is simple: it just isn’t fair to burden a single witness with that much information. Contention interrogatories can achieve the same the same goal, without forcing a 30(b)(6) witness to sit for the most stressful memory test of their life.

In a discovery order on Friday, Judge Andrews highlighted an important corollary to this rule: you can’t get around it by framing your contention topic as a request for “all facts” about a party’s contentions. The judge found that all four of these examples were improper contention topics:

  • Investigations, tests, studies, surveys, interviews, reviews, analyses and …
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Public Access Wins Again

Jeff Castellano, Dec. 22, 2020
Sealing

Consistent with the trend in this District, Judge Andrews recently rejected a defendant's unopposed request to seal the [virtual] courtroom and exhibits for a preliminary injunction hearing, despite the defendant's assertions that its presentation might include trade secrets and other highly confidential technical and financial information, and that it would be "prevented from effectively offering its arguments" if the proceedings were not sealed.

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No, You Cannot Call the Plaintiff a "Patent Troll" at Trial (and Other Recent In Limine Results)

Andrew E. Russell, Dec. 21, 2020
Trial Trial Calendar

Bridge
Jamie Street, Unsplash

Motions in limine can be kind of exciting. The motions and the rulings are typically short, and they are ordinarily filed with the pretrial order just before trial. Unlike most motions, the Court usually rules on them quickly (between the PTO and the trial), sometimes live at the pretrial conference, and the impact is felt almost immediately.

Plus, orders that result from MILs can sometimes have a huge effect on the practical course of the trial by precluding important arguments and evidence, or even by interfering with your trial themes—frequently at the last minute. So it's worth keeping in mind the kinds of things that may come up at the MIL stage.

Last week, Judge Andrews …

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Judge Stark's Novel Compromise Between Dismissing With and Without Prejudice

Nathan R. Hoeschen, Dec. 17, 2020
101 Day Prejudice

Conservatively, 134,000,000% of 12(b)(6) motions request dismissal with prejudice. After all, no one wants to win a motion only to start a similar, but slightly harder round of briefing, when the plaintiff inevitably does file a modestly improved complaint. However, it tends to be a pretty big life to actually secure a dismissal with prejudice when the plaintiff has not already tried and fail to fix the complaint's problems.

It's occurred to me in the past that it would be nice to have a middle ground between a dismissal with and without prejudice. Something for claims that haven't already proven themselves beyond repair with serial amendments, but that are marginal enough that they are unlikely to be cured.

Judge Stark …

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