A Blog About Intellectual Property Litigation and the District of Delaware


DED
United States District Court for the District of Delaware

Defendants' Promise to Give Up a Throw-Away Argument Fails to Persuade Court to Stay Action

Andrew E. Russell, April 28, 2023
Ex Parte Reexamination Stay

Trash Cans
Lucas Beck, Unsplash

The defendants in Corteva Agriscience LLC v. Monsanto Company, C.A. No. 22-1046-GBW (D. Del. Apr. 27, 2023) moved to stay after a third party initiated an ex parte reexamination of the patents-in-suit.

To meet the "simplification" factor in moving to stay, defendants offered to drop their obviousness-type double patenting defense:

The first factor—whether granting the stay will simplify the issues for trial—disfavors a stay. Defendants assert a stay would simplify the case. First, Bayer claims it will agree to not argue that the '555 Patent is invalid for obvious-type double patenting ("OTDP") on the basis of U.S. Patent No. 11,149,283 ("the '238 patent" ) and that dropping this argument will simplify the issues for trial. D.I. 41 at 9.

The Court quickly dispatched with that idea, noting that it was essentially a throw-away argument:

However, Defendants recognize that Corteva can overcome the OTDP argument if Corteva files a terminal disclaimer. 3 Id. at 9-10. Because it is likely that this OTDP argument will not make it to trial anyway, the Court does not find that Bayer's offer to drop the argument will simplify the case.

The Court found that the factors did not favor a stay, especially considering the plaintiff had added two additional patents in the time since defendants filed their motion, and those two patents are not subject to re-examination. Beyond that, a stay would likely preclude injunctive relief (due to a patent expiration).

All told, it's not clear how they could have prevailed on this motion at all after the plaintiff asserted the two additional patents.

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Check the Docket Before Failing to Appear for a Hearing

Emily DiBenedetto, April 25, 2023
Stipulation Meet-and-Confer

Broken Communication
Reid Naaykens, Unsplash

Parties can freely stipulate to many things in the District of Delaware, and often stipulations to extend deadlines are filed close to the last minute, especially where the parties are working toward agreement but ultimately cannot agree on the final filing in time (or else are having trouble connecting with the other side).

However, stipulations filed close to the Delaware witching hour (5:00PM EST) can be fraught with risk of the Court's denial, as we’ve seen in past heart-stopping examples. We’ve warned before that requests to move Court-scheduled conferences are in the “iffy” category, and combined with last minute filing, can end in disappointment for everyone, as shown in an oral order from Judge Noreika last week in Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc. v. Lupin Limited et al., C.A. 21-1042, D.I. 197 (D. Del. Jul. 16, 2021):

On April 17, 2023, the Court instructed the parties to talk to each other about their disputes so that a follow-up call with the Court (set for April 21, 2023) would be more productive than the prior call. On April 21, 2023, a few hours before the set call, the parties submitted a stipulation requesting the April 21 call be delayed. After further inquiries, it became clear that, in the five days after the Court directed the parties to TALK, they did not do so. The Court intended to address that during the April 21 call, but no counsel appeared for the call (notwithstanding that the Court had not granted the request for a delay). THEREFORE, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that, should the parties not inform the Court that they have resolved their dispute in full by Tuesday April 25, 2023, lead trial counsel SHALL appear in person in Courtroom 4A on April 26, 2023 at 3:00 p.m. ORDERED by Judge Maryellen Noreika on 4/21/2023.

Judge Noreika previously indicated frustration with the magnitude of this particular discovery dispute (on search methods to find responsive documents), so the parties were on thin ice long before ...

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I Don't Wanna Wait, For Our Cases To Be Oveeerrrrrrr

Nathan R. Hoeschen, April 25, 2023
Discovery Dispute

It begins with a series of interminably long emails. I say that you really should be producing these documents—I cite cases, exhaustively describe the items sought, and cite check the whole thing like it's headed to the Supreme Court. You respond by pointing out that I am just hopelessly misguided, and have perhaps been drinking. You also cite cases.

Eventually everyone gets on the phone to hash things out. Two hours later you agree to take my positions "under advisement" and call it a day.

Meet and confer accomplished.

Why is this one so creepy? It's just supposed to be werewolves shaking hands
Why is this one so creepy? It's just supposed to be werewolves shaking hands AI-Generated, displayed with permission

It's not always that bad, but there is definite potential for one or both parties to drag the process out. It's rare to see any consequences to this sort of slow-rolling, as it's usually invisible to the Court.

Every now and then, though, someone gets called out for it, and yesterday was one of those days. The dispute in TwinStrand Biosciences, Inc. v. Guardant Health, Inc., C.A. No. 21-1126-GBW-SRF (D. Del. Apr. 24, 2023) (Oral Order) was your usual request that a party supplement an interrogatory. Judge Fallon granted the motion, but took the unusual step of noting the somewhat tortured history of the parties' correspondence

Guardant's second supplemental response to Interrogatory No. 6 provides some of this information for only one of the Asserted Patents. Guardant represented that it would produce and identify documents responsive to the Interrogatory under Fed. R. Civ. P. 33(d) as discovery continued. Guardant's responses to Plaintiffs' requests for supplementation of Interrogatory No. 6 during the meet and confer process suggest that Guardant may have additional responsive information that has not yet been disclosed. (As of March 17, 2023, Guardant represented it "will provide our position or a supplementation in due course"); (As of April 4, 2023, Guardant was "considering [Plaintiffs'] proposal and hope[s] to have a response soon."). Otherwise, Guardant could have put the matter to rest and avoided burdening the Court by simply confirming that it had no additional information responsive to Interrogatory No. 6.

The phrasing here is not quite a rebuke, but parties generally like to keep their name as far removed from ...

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Court Strikes Key Infringement Argument Where Party Had No Good Explanation for Late Disclosure

Andrew E. Russell, April 24, 2023
Infringement Contentions Pennypack

"Did I remember to disclose my infringement counter-arguments? Ah well, I'll just argue that they're responsive." Tim Bogdanov, Unsplash

Judge Williams unsealed a detailed Pennypack decision Friday, where he struck an expert's infringement argument after the party failed to disclose it in their contentions.

The motion and brief provide some helpful context here. The defendant moved to strike material in the expert's opening report that apparently responded for the first time to arguments made in the defendant's non-infringement contentions. Cirba Inc. v. VMWare, Inc., C.A. No. 19-742-GBW, D.I. 1460 at 1 (D. Del. Nov. 28, 2022); Id., D.I. 1461 at 2-3.

The Court rejected an attempt to argue that the argument was "responsive" to a filing …

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Staying Ahead of the Game

Nathan R. Hoeschen, April 20, 2023
Redactions

Today I noticed for the first time what may be a new move in the redaction game. I neither like nor understand chess (the two may be related), but it feels like I witnessed the birth of the French defense.

DALL·E 2023-04-20 17.34.27 - painting of two dogs playing chess while wearing berets in the style of dogs playing poker
AI-Generated, displayed with permission

As we've discussed ad nauseum, it has become standard practice for Judge Andrews to reject filings that redact exhibits in their entirety (or nearly so) with an oral order like the following:

ORAL ORDER: The redacted filing (D.I. 163 ) is REJECTED because parts of it are redacted in its entirety. Absent a compelling reason, supported by a statement under oath by a party, redactions in their entirety are impermissible; redactions must be done so as to redact the least possible amount of the materials submitted. Failure to make a good faith attempt at such redactions may result in sanctions, the most common of which would be simply unsealing the entire filing. Redacting in its entirety a document or parts of it that contains publicly available materials is prima facie evidence of bad faith. A revised redacted filing is DUE within five business days.

Vertex Pharms. Inc. v. Sun Pharm. Ind. Ltd., C.A. No. 20-988-RGA (D. Del. Apr. 12, 2023).

Despite this repeated refrain, I still see at least a couple such orders every month. This week, however, was the first time I saw a party take the step of submitting "a statement under oath by a party" at the same time it submitted its redactions, rather than waiting for them to first be rejected.

Interestingly, the statement itself was fairly light on detail stating only that it was redacting "the proprietary formulation contained in its ANDA" and describing ...

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Judge Williams: Evidence of Plaintiff's Investors and Litigation Funding is Admissible at Trial

Andrew E. Russell, April 19, 2023
Litigation Funding MIL

"Your honor, we move to turn the apple, so that the jury can only see the side that's not rotten." Giuseppe CUZZOCREA, Unsplash

Yesterday, Judge Williams issued an opinion ruling on motions in limine for the trial starting next week in Cirba Inc. (d/b/a DENSIFY) v. VMWare, Inc., C.A. No. 19-742-GBW (D. Del.) (a case we've discussed several times before).

In it, he addressed several MILs. These opinions are always interesting, but given all of the recent discussion of litigation funding, I thought Judge Williams' order on the plaintiff's litigation funding MIL is worth noting.

Plaintiffs in the case moved in limine to preclude reference to their litigation funding arrangements:

With respect to Plaintiffs …
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Judge Burke Applies "Motion Day" Procedure to non-§ 101 Motions

Andrew E. Russell, April 17, 2023
§ 101 Days

Two birds with one stone—Or three, I suppose.
Two birds with one stone—Or three, I suppose. Dulcey Lima, Unsplash

As we've discussed, starting last decade some of our judges have dealt with the influx of § 101 motions by setting "§ 101 motion days" and addressing multiple § 101 motions in multiple cases at the same time and in the same oral argument, with attorneys for each party required to attend the full argument.

These days seem to have been a success, because today Judge Burke issued an order applying the same procedure to a new type of motion—motions to dismiss or strike inequitable conduct allegations:

WHEREAS, the Court has received numerous motions challenging the accused infringer’s counterclaims and/or affirmative defenses relating to inequitable conduct (hereafter, …
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Another Reason to Bring Non-Infringement / Invalidity Counterclaims

Andrew E. Russell, April 14, 2023
Counterclaims

To keep the patent assertion entity from coming back from dead, kill it with counterclaims
To keep the patent assertion entity from coming back from dead, kill it with counterclaims AI-Generated, displayed with permission

One recurring question in patent cases is whether to bring non-infringement and invalidity counterclaims.

For a while (over the last decade), it seemed like parties were backing off on counterclaims a bit, for a couple of reasons:

  • While counterclaims are generally low-cost, they are not free and still involve some work.
  • They increase the risk that the defendant, who is now a counterclaim-plaintiff, will have to bring some subset of its witnesses to Delaware for deposition.
  • They may have little impact on how the case progresses.

These days, however, the pendulum seems to be swinging back to some extent, with parties …

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What's The Worst That Could Happen?

Nathan R. Hoeschen, April 13, 2023
Sealing Redactions

DALL·E 2023-04-13 15.54.57 - 35 MM photo of smiling dentist holding bloody wrench and giving thumbs up
AI-Generated, displayed with permission

Motions for reargument are notoriously hard. Winning one is the legal equivalent of the going to the dentist and hearing that you really ought to take it easy and stop brushing so much.

Nevertheless, you see them filed all the time. I imagine the thinking is that, even if the odds are low, you've already lost the motion so things can't get any worse.

But they can!

Things can always get worse!

You could tell he was just trying to hold it in in the last photo
You could tell he was just trying to hold it in in the last photo AI-Generated, displayed with permission

This was the lesson in Carrum Techs., LLC v. Ford Motor Co., C.A. No. 18-1647 (D. Del. Apr. 11, 2023). A couple of weeks ago, the defendant filed a motion to seal one of its briefs. The motion was short and unaccompanied by a declaration, so Judge Andrews denied it in a one-sentence Oral Order.

Now it's unclear why exactly the Defendant filed a motion to seal in this instance, as the parties had previously filed many documents under seal without a motion in accordance with CM/ECF procedures. The defendant thus moved for reargument on the motion to seal, largely arguing that it hadn't needed to file the motion in the first place:

Over the course of this litigation, various other pleadings have been filed under seal by agreement of the parties. Ford did not intend to request different treatment of its Memorandum and Exhibits than prior sealed filings in this litigation. Rather, Ford proceeded in a manner ...
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Heads Up: Check Your Calendars for Sept. 21-22 Deadlines in D. Del. The Court May Have Just Moved Them.

Andrew E. Russell, April 12, 2023
Bench and Bar DED

I'll fix that for you...
Sasun Bughdaryan, Unsplash

The Court issued an order today clearing all of our calendars for the District of Delaware's Bench and Bar, which is set for September 21-22, 2023.

The order says that it moves all filing and service deadlines to the following Monday:

WHEREAS, the Court having announced that it will host its biennial District of Delaware Bench and Bar Conference on September 21 and 22, 2023, and the
Court wishing to promote the participation of as many members of the Bar as possible;
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that all members of the court - District, Magistrate, and Bankruptcy Judges - will, to the greatest extent possible, cancel and refrain from scheduling court proceedings and filing deadlines on …
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