A Blog About Intellectual Property Litigation and the District of Delaware


Patent
Patent

You Can Check In Any Time You Like, But Your Documents Never Leave

Nathan R. Hoeschen, Oct. 4, 2022
Protective Order

Andrew is better at this A.I. thing, mine still appear monstrous
A.I. Generated, displayed with permission

Every protective order I've ever seen has a provision at the end requiring the parties to return or (more likely) destroy any confidential information (with some limited exceptions) from the other party when the case is over. It's generally not a contentious paragraph.

Judge Fallon, however, dealt with a discovery dispute on this issue, that I was surprised had never come up before -- what happens when there are multiple unrelated defendants, as in ANDA cases? Do you destroy the documents when the relevant defendant drops out of the case, or can you keep them until the whole consolidated mess is over and done with?

Per Judge Fallon, the answer is you get to …

View

Judge Noreika Rejects Waiver Argument in Case Where Both Parties Agree the Jury Made a Mistake

Andrew E. Russell, Oct. 3, 2022
Jury Objections Jury

Lawyer Objecting
AI-Generated, displayed with permission

At the jury trial in ArcherDX, LLC v. Qiagen Sciences, LLC, C.A. No. 19-1019-MN (D. Del.), the plaintiffs argued for $752,006 in U.S. royalties, and the jury awarded $1,593,762.

The higher number happened to exactly match the $752,006 they asked for for U.S. royalties, plus the lost profits number:

The $1,593,762 U.S. royalty award, however, is much higher than the estimate provided by Plaintiffs’ expert, and, in fact is equivalent to the expert’s suggested award for lost profits ($841,756) plus U.S. royalties ($752,006).

The parties both agreed that it was a mistake, and that the jury had intended to award the $752,006 that plaintiffs had asked for.

Plaintiffs, however, refused to give …

View

Patent Marking: Better Watch Those Burdens of Proof, or You'll Lose Your Pre-Suit Damages

Andrew E. Russell, Sept. 30, 2022
Summary Judgment Pre-Suit Damages

Here's an AI-generated patentee dealing with the burden of proof on marking.
Here's an AI-generated patentee dealing with the burden of proof on marking. AI-Generated, displayed with permission

My co-blogger Nate wrote yesterday about Magistrate Judge Hall's discussion of prior art estoppel in Innovative Memory Systems Inc. v. Micron Technology Inc., No. 14-1480-RGA (D. Del. Sept. 29, 2022). That was actually just one issue the Court dealt with in a lengthy R&R and Order on a summary judgment and Daubert. I wanted to post about one of the other issues Judge Hall addressed in that opinion: patent marking.

Marking is an important and sometimes underrated issue. It's not uncommon, in patent cases, for the bulk of the damages to have accrued in the years prior to the plaintiff filing suit. These "pre-suit" damages can be at risk, though, if the patentee sold products that practice the patent and failed to mark them under 35 U.S.C. § 287(a). Here is how Judge Hall explained it in Innovative Memory:

[W]hen a plaintiff makes or sells a product practicing its patent, the plaintiff can only recover pre-suit damages from an infringer if (1) the patentee marked its product in the manner specified in § 287(a) or (2) the patentee notified the infringer of its infringement. Even if a plaintiff patentee doesn’t make or sell anything, it cannot recover pre-suit damages (absent providing notice) if a prior owner of the patent failed to mark its products covered by the patent.

One interesting thing about marking, ...

View

Court Permits Reliance on Non-Prior Art Documents as Evidence of Prior Art

Andrew E. Russell, Sept. 28, 2022
FRE 803 Hearsay

AI-generated image of a defendant relying on non-prior art documents as evidence of prior art
AI-generated image of a defendant relying on non-prior art documents as evidence of prior art Andrew E. Russell, displayed with permission

Judge Stark issued an oral order yesterday addressing a motion in limine in Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. v. Zenara Pharma Private Ltd., C.A. No. 19-1938-LPS (D. Del.).

According to the briefing, plaintiff sought to exclude two exhibits that were dated after the priority date of the patent.

The first was a 2005 "review article" published just months after the priority date. According to defendants' brief, "does not present original data" and instead "discusses the information known in the art before the priority date."

The second exhibit was published in 2021 and includes a "history of research …

View

Court Rejects Parties' Request to Change Trial Scope After Fed. Cir. Vacates Previous Trial Result

Andrew E. Russell, Sept. 26, 2022
Trial Motion in Limine

Chart

Procedural opinions about post-appeal trials are relatively rare, at least compared to the amount of decisions on motions to dismiss or summary judgment that we see. Most cases settle long before they reach this stage. So I thought it was worth posting about how Judge Bataillon handled a new trial in C R Bard Inc. v AngioDynamics, Inc., C.A. No. 15-218-JFB-SRF (D. Del.) after the Federal Circuit vacated the result of the previous trial.

The parties in the case sought to introduce new information in the new trial, including at least one accused product that was released after the previous trial. The Court rejected that idea, holding that the new trial would be a direct repeat of …

View

Plaintiff's "'Cut and Paste' Approach Cannot Be a Viable Pleading Strategy"

Andrew E. Russell, Sept. 23, 2022
Complaint Legal Writing

Mel Poole
Mel Poole, Unsplash

Judge Burke issued an oral order earlier this week with some interesting language criticizing the party's attempt at an amended complaint.

In Midwest Energy Emissions Corp. v. Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., C.A. No. 19-1334-CJB (D. Del.), the plaintiff accused a very large number of entities—More than 50, it looks like—with infringement of a number of patents, all in a single combined action.

Earlier this year, it moved to amend its complaint to add additional defendants it alleged were parent companies of defendants who were as acting as the parent companies' "alter egos and agents." Judge Burke granted this request as to one party, for which the complaint included more detailed factual allegations, …

View

Judge Kennelly Weighs In on Whether Complaint Can Establish Notice for Willfulness

Andrew E. Russell, Sept. 21, 2022
FRCP 12(b)(6) Post-Filing Willfulness

An AI-generated (!!) scene of a split courthouse
AI-Generated, displayed with permission

We've written a lot about how there is a split in the District of Delaware about whether a complaint itself can establish knowledge of infringement sufficient to support a claim of post-filing willfulness or induced infringement.

Early this week, visiting Judge Kennelly weighed in, siding with the judges who say that a complaint can establish knowledge, in a short opinion:

A claim for willful infringement of a patent requires the plaintiff to establish—or at this point in the case, to plausibly allege—that the accused infringer had knowledge of or was willfully blind to the patent and that its conduct constituted, induced, or contributed to infringement. . . . Similarly, a claim of induced or contributory infringement …
View

How Much Information Do You Need in a Joint Status Report in the District of Delaware? Another Data Point

Andrew E. Russell, Sept. 19, 2022
Joint Status Report Sua Sponte

Our status report, your honor? We're all good.
Our status report, your honor? We're all good. Sincerely Media, Unsplash

As we've mentioned in the past, in D. Del. patent cases, the Court often sets deadlines for submission of a "status report" (or, sometimes, a "joint status report" or "interim status report").

These orders can be somewhat vague. The Court doesn't always request "a joint status report regarding xyz." Instead, at times, it will issue a generic request for a status report, like this:

ORAL ORDER - IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that, on or before 9/23/2022, the parties shall submit a joint status report. ORDERED by Judge Maryellen Noreika on 9/16/2022.

To which the natural human response is "a status report about what?" Usually, though, it's pretty obvious from the docket. In the case above, C.A. No. 21-459-MN, the case is stayed pending appeal of another case, and the order follows a more than year-long delay with no action. The Court probably wants to know the status of the appeal.

The next question is often "how much detail does the Court want?" The answer seems to vary depending on the context. It's usually safe to assume that the Court does not want disputes or argument from the parties, and that it likely appreciates a concise statement of only what the Court needs to know to take action. But it can be hard to say for sure ...

View

Judge Williams' Form Patent Scheduling Orders Mirror Judge Noreika's—With Some Changes

Andrew E. Russell, Sept. 14, 2022
Scheduling Orders Vacant Judgeship

Quilt
Olga Ferina, Unsplash

Judge Williams has now posted his form scheduling orders on the District of Delaware website.

I took a look through his non-ANDA scheduling order, and it will be extremely familiar to Delaware practitioners. It mostly tracks Judge Noreika's form order.

Judge Williams' form order does, however, pull in portions from other Delaware judges' form scheduling orders. Here are some changes in Judge Williams' new form order as compared to Judge Noreika's form:

  • Discovery disputes and motions to amend or strike use language from Judge Stark's form scheduling order.
    • Parties sometimes get tripped up on this, and forget that motions to amend or strike have special rules—so keep that in mind if you have a Judge …
View

Chief Judge Connolly Orders Plaintiffs’ Individual Owners to Appear for In-Person for Evidentiary Hearings Regarding Compliance with His Standing Orders—in at least 14 Different Cases

Andrew E. Russell, Sept. 12, 2022
Litigation Funding Standing Orders

Bullet Holes
Mykola Makhlai, Unsplash

At this point it's clear that Chief Judge Connolly's standing orders regarding initial disclosures and litigation funding are no joke, and plaintiffs need to comply with them or risk consequences.

Today, the Court took the further step of requiring the owners of plaintiff entities in at least 14 cases to appear in-person for evidentiary hearings regarding compliance with his standing orders.

The orders today generally took the following form:

Whereas the amended corporate disclosure forms Plaintiff filed in the above-captioned cases identify [owner name(s)] as Plaintiff s owner; and
Whereas the Court has concerns about whether Plaintiff has complied with the Court's standing order regarding third-paty litigation funding [or about the accuracy of the …
View
Newer
Older

Archive