A Blog About Intellectual Property Litigation and the District of Delaware


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"Failure of the Defendant to Concede [Does Not] Automatically Convert . . . a Non-Willfulness Case into a Willfulness Case"

Andrew E. Russell, Dec. 9, 2020
Willfulness Indirect Infringement

Illustration of plaintiff's willfulness allegations
Illustration of plaintiff's willfulness allegations Head Of A Skeleton With A Burning Cigarette, Vincent van Gogh

Judge Andrews, in granting a motion to dismiss a patentee's willfulness allegations:

The allegations could charitably be described as bare-bones. There is nothing to suggest any pre-suit knowledge of the two asserted patents. Thus, Plaintiff’s position is that failure of the Defendant to concede after a suit is filed automatically converts a non-willfulness case into a willfulness case. I disagree. Thus, I will grant the motion as to willfulness.

In the same short order, he set out his view on the difference in pleading standards between willfulness and indirect infringement:

As to indirect infringement, I think the allegations make out a case for post-December 2014 indirect infringement. (I do not think Plaintiff is arguing that there was any pre-December 2014 indirect infringement, and, in any event, there are no allegations that would provide any basis for such a theory.). I do not think the requirements in regard to state of mind for indirect infringement are as great as they are for willfulness. Thus, I will deny the motion as to indirect infringement.
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Plaintiff Throws (Almost) Everything at § 101 Motion to Dismiss, Loses

Andrew E. Russell, Dec. 7, 2020
MTD § 101

I couldn't find a picture of
I couldn't find a picture of "teleorthodontics" H. Shaw, Unsplash

Today, Judge Connolly held ineligible a patent directed to "teleorthodontics," i.e., a business method for practicing orthodontics remotely through the use of 3D scans of a patients' mouth.

The outcome is not all that unusual—Judge Connolly characterized the patents as essentially "do it with a computer" patents for orthodontics, where the patent claims performing a traditionally offline activity remotely using conventional computers and commercially available 3D scanners.

And, as the Court noted, other courts have held telehealth business method patents ineligible under § 101. Here, according to the Court, the patents at issue simply applied available commercial technology to the abstract idea of connecting patients and orthodontists …

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Chief Judge Stark Confirms $137m Damages Award on 65% Royalty Theory, But Reverses Jury Finding of Willfulness

Andrew E. Russell, Nov. 30, 2020
Damages Willfulness

Dollar Bills
Sharon McCutcheon, Unsplash

Chief Judge Stark today released his opinion on post-trial motions in Roch Diagnostics Co. v. Meso Scale Diagnostics, LLC, C.A. No. 17-189-LPS (D. Del.), following a jury trial last year that resulted in a $137m verdict and a finding of willfulness.

Damages Award on 65% Royalty Theory Confirmed

The Court denied a post-trial motion to undo the jury's damage finding, which equated to an approximately 65% royalty rate (or more, depending on the royalty base).

Interestingly, the jury awarded damages after a one-sided royalty rate presentation by Roche, the accused infringer. The Court had previously excluded the patentee's damages expert's opinion as to the royalty rate, because it used the wrong date …

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Here's a Spreadsheet That Forecasts IPR Deadlines and Timing Based on the Filing Date

Andrew E. Russell, Nov. 23, 2020
KB IPR Timing Estimator

IPR Timing Estimator Screenshot
Andrew E. Russell

It can be kind of a pain to estimate the schedule of an inter partes review proceeding beforehand, because the dates are relative (e.g., "30 days after x"), and because the deadlines are set in a number of different places (e.g., the U.S. Code, the Code of Federal Regulations, the PTAB's Trial Practice Guide).

A few years ago, I put together a spreadsheet that automatically estimates the timing and deadlines of an IPR based on the filing date. I've updated it a couple of times since then.

A spreadsheet like this can be a great help when you need to figure out the timing of an IPR so that you can do …

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Fed. Cir. Confirms That "Printed Matter" Can Render Claims Ineligible Under § 101

Andrew E. Russell, Nov. 10, 2020
§ 101 Printed Matter

Handwritten Form
Glenn Carstens-Peters, Unsplash

The "printed matter" doctrine states that elements claiming printed matter—e.g., text printed on paper or some other substrate—bear no patentable weight unless the printed matter and the substrate are functionally related. As the Federal Circuit explained today:

[P]rinted matter encompasses any information claimed for its communicative content, and the doctrine prohibits patenting such printed matter unless it is “functionally related” to its “substrate,” which encompasses the structural elements of the claimed invention.

In its decision, the Federal Circuit noted the Court has—incredibly—never addressed whether a claim directed to printed matter is ineligible under § 101:

Notably, since the Supreme Court articulated its two-step framework in Alice, this court has not directly addressed whether …
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Judge Connolly Sets Out His Views on Expediting "Silver Bullet" Motions, Including Indefiniteness

Andrew E. Russell, Nov. 6, 2020
Marking Early SJ

Wolf
Wolf in the Forest, Philipp Pilz, Unsplash

I don't have the full transcript, but based on quotes set out in a letter filed by the parties, Judge Connolly recently set forth his thoughts on the kinds of issues he is willing to address early in the case:

Now, what I try to do when I think there's kind of a silver bullet, I move it to the top of the pile. That's what I do on indefiniteness.

According to the letter, Judge Connolly was prepared to stay the case and expedite summary judgment briefing on indefiniteness if it was case dispositive. Defendant declined that offer in a letter after the hearing.

Judge Connolly also suggested that he …

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No Interlocutory Appeal of Contract-Based Patent Standing (Ever?)

Andrew E. Russell, Nov. 2, 2020
Standing MTD

Stop Sign
Luke van Zyl, Unsplash

Late last week, Judge Noreika denied a motion for interlocutory appeal of an denial of a motion to dismiss for lack of standing.

Security Interest Doesn't Prevent Suit After Debt Repaid

In moving to dismiss, defendant argued that the PTO assignment records show that the the patentee had assigned its patents to a lender as collateral and, after the debt was repaid, had never received an assignment back or any release of the security interest.

Plaintiff countered that the security interest was extinguished once the debt was repaid, regardless of any release or assignment specific to the patent. So no separate assignment back was needed.

Judge Noreika sided held that the judgment had been satisfied …

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Summary Judgment Granted Where Doctrine of Equivalents Analysis Merely "Repackaged" Literal Infringement Analysis

Andrew E. Russell, Oct. 30, 2020
DOE SJ

Chief Judge Stark this week granted a motion of non-infringement under the doctrine of equivalents due to the slim DOE analysis relied on by the patentee's expert.

Interestingly, the expert had offered some testimony framed in terms of the usual function-way-result DOE test:

[T]he Accused Products perform substantially the same function (producing densitometry/densitometric models for use in assessing bone density), in substantially the same way (determining linear attenuation coefficients of an object in several tomographic scans and combining this information using the Feldkamp algorithm to determine the grayscale values of voxels and the corresponding HU units thereof of a 3D CBCT volume of the object), to achieve substantially the same result (3D volumes that include information for depicting quantitative differences …
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This Is Why People Hate Having to Assert Prior Art Systems as References

Andrew E. Russell, Oct. 26, 2020
Claim Narrowing Contentions

Ok, maybe not all people, and not all of the time. But in ranking the kinds of prior art I'd like to be able to assert against a tech patent, off of the top of my head, I'd rank system references pretty low:

  1. A U.S. Patent: Simple and easy.
  2. A foreign patent: Proving authenticity and publication is usually easy (but sometimes not).
  3. A journal publication: You may have to jump through some hoops, but no big deal.
  4. A Wayback Machine reference: Now one of those hoops is waiting (and waiting...) for a declaration through the Internet Archive's procedures. But it's not hard to get.
  5. A book. Now you may be dealing with librarian declarations.
  6. . . . …
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Chief Judge Stark Strikes Expert Opinions Under Pennypack

Andrew E. Russell, Oct. 21, 2020
Expert Discovery Motion to Strike

Pennies.
Pennies. Mark Bosky, Unsplash

I always find it interesting to see what kinds of facts that can succeed in a motion to strike. As I've mentioned, motions to strike in the Third Circuit are governed by the Pennypack factors, which can be tricky to meet and often favor lesser remedies (although the Court does strike things).

Here is what it took to warrant striking portions of an opening infringement report Arendi S.A.R.L. v. LG Electronics, C.A. No. 12-1595-LPS (D. Del.):

  • Disclosing infringement contentions against five new products for the first time;
  • Relying on previously undisclosed evidence;
  • Doing so in the 8th year of a case (albeit one currently without a trial date); …
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