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Judge Connolly Offers an Insight on Sufficiency of Contentions

Andrew E. Russell, May 3, 2021
Infringement Contentions Contentions

As we've mentioned, Judge Connolly uses a different system of patent contentions than the other District of Delaware judges. The other judges generally use the system set forth in the Default Standard, while Judge Connolly's approach is modeled after the more restrictive method used in the Northern District of California.

Because he uses a unique system, parties often wonder just how much (or how little) is needed to offer sufficient contentions in Judge Connolly's view.

Judge Connolly offered some insight on that point today, when he overruled a patentee's objections to an accused infringer's invalidity contentions. Here is one of the contentions at issue:

Claims 1, 2, and 4 of the ’489 patent are invalid under 35 U.S.C. § …
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Indefiniteness Dooms Computer Bag Claims

Andrew E. Russell, May 3, 2021
Markman Briefing Indefiniteness

Judge Andrews today released a claim construction regarding several computer bag claims. Six of the claims at issue included elements regarding orientation of the opening in a computer bag:

“[pouch] opening[s] [is/are] . . . oriented in a direction substantially parallel to the planar surface”

U.S. Pat. No. 8,567,578
U.S. Pat. No. 8,567,578 U.S. Pat. No. 8,567,578

He found the claims indefinite because a POSITA would not understand the "orientation" of a bag opening, and the specification and prosecution history offered no hints:

At oral argument, [defendant] Victorinox contended that it is impossible to choose between two plausible views as to how to identify the orientation of the pouch opening; the “planar view” articulated by Victorinox and the direction pointing out of the pouch …
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Judge Connolly Institutes New Summary Judgment Procedures to Deter Meritless Motions

Andrew E. Russell, April 30, 2021
SJ Litigation

In a new standing order today, Judge Connolly announced a new procedure for SJ motions in patent cases. Going forward, he will require parties in all patent cases (current and future) to rank their summary judgment motions, and if any motion is denied, he will generally deny all lower-ranked motions as well:

1. A party that files more than one summary judgment motion shall number each motion to make clear the order the party wishes the Court to consider the motions in question. The first motion the party wishes the Court to consider shall be designated #1, the second motion shall be designated #2, and so on.
2. The Court will review the party’s summary judgment motions in the …
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Prior Expert Testimony from IPR Inadmissible in District Court Action

Andrew E. Russell, April 19, 2021
Trial Motion in Limine

Arrows on Sign
Adrià Tormo, Unsplash

In another ruling from the In Re ChanBond litigation as it approaches trial, Judge Andrews today issued an in-depth opinion granting a motion in limine to exclude reference to prior expert testimony from a related IPR proceeding, on the grounds that the testimony is hearsay.

Plaintiff sought to admit the material as former testimony under FRE 804(b)(1), because it is helpful to its infringement case. The rule requires, however, that the former testimony was offered against the parties' predecessor who had "an opportunity and similar motive to develop it."

Here, Judge Andrews found that an IPR petitioner's motive in developing expert testimony to show invalidity is different from a defendant's motive developing its non-infringement position:

I …
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Final Score Card for the March 12th § 101 Day Hearing

Andrew E. Russell, March 22, 2021
§ 101 Days § 101

On Friday, Chief Judge Stark released his opinion summarizing his bench rulings from his most recent Section 101 day. This is how the patents fared:

Content Square v. Quantum Metric, Inc., C.A. No. 20-832-LPS (D. Del.)

In the first case, Content Square, the Court invalidated the claims of 2 of the 5 asserted patents.

Not this kind of web crawling.
Not this kind of web crawling. Michael Anfang, Unsplash

The invalidated patents related to "heat map patents," which relate to displaying heat maps of web browsing data. These include U.S. Patent Nos. 10,063,645 and 10,079,737.

The third patent, which was not invalidated, related to "creating multiple versions of a website to determine users' preferences." Interestingly, the Court held …

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Judge Andrews: Claim Not Indefinite, Despite Possible Drafting Error

Andrew E. Russell, March 15, 2021
Indefiniteness Claim Construction

A nautilus. It's nice when significant cases have memorable names.
A nautilus. It's nice when significant cases have memorable names. Shawn Low, Unsplash

Claim construction opinions tend to be highly fact-specific, so even though they can be critically important to the parties in a case, we don't always post about them on this blog.

Judge Andrews issued an interesting claim construction opinion today, however, which addressed indefiniteness due to a potential drafting error in a claim.

The opinion involved claim language for a mechanical device:

. . . wherein the . . . assembly comprises a housing comprising the syringe and the stirring motor . . .

Defendants argued indefiniteness in light of the dual use of "comprising," because a person of skill in the art cannot determine a …

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Initial Contentions in Delaware Patent Cases: A Primer

Jeff Castellano, Feb. 23, 2021
Default Standard KB

In the vast majority of patent case in Delaware, the parties are required to serve initial patent disclosures in the form of infringement and invalidity contentions (separate from the contentions they might otherwise serve as part of written discovery). These initial contentions set the stage for fact discovery, claim construction, expert reports, and (in some cases) settlement.

Initial patent disclosures were formalized in this District to some degree by the Court's creation of the Default Standard for Discovery nearly a decade ago. The Default Standard established a staged set of initial disclosures that was eventually adopted by most of the Judges here.

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Another Day, Another Doctrine of Equivalents Argument Excluded

Andrew E. Russell, Feb. 1, 2021
Contentions Expert Discovery

Even when plaintiffs know of the potential weak spots in their infringement cases, they sometimes fail to address DOE until too late, or they offer a DOE analysis so weak that it gets excluded or wiped out by summary judgment.

That's what happened last week, when Chief Judge Stark struck a DOE opinion after a plaintiff tried to squeak by on the idea that its late DOE argument should be permitted because it never affirmatively disclaimed DOE:

Arendi's passing reference to DOE in its complaints followed by its lack of affirmative disclaimer of DOE theories (see, e.g., C.A. No. 12−1595 D.I. 238 at 5) ("Arendi has never asserted that its claims were limited to literal infringement") does …
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Judge Stark Resolves Pretrial Disputes About Courtroom Sealing, Cross Exhibits

Jeff Castellano, Jan. 26, 2021
ANDA Trial Procedure

Somewhere between the filing of the pretrial order and the pretrial conference, Judge Stark typically issues an order resolving pretrial disputes and allocating trial time. These orders - while usually short - provide a wealth of insight into his trial practices and preferences, and (often) his views on substantive evidentiary issues. They also serve to remind litigants of longstanding trial management practices (including those codified in his form pretrial order).

On Friday, Judge Stark issued a 3-page pretrial memorandum order in a set of consolidated Hatch-Waxman ("ANDA") actions, Silvergate Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Bionpharma, Inc. et al., C.A. Nos. 18-1962, 19-1067, 19-678. The order contained decisions on sealing the courtroom during the bench trial, obviousness proofs, disclosure of exhibits to be used on cross examination, and others.

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Judge Andrews Strikes Two-Reference Anticipation Opinion

Andrew E. Russell, Jan. 22, 2021
Anticipation Litigation

When one prior art reference incorporates another, parties often prefer to argue that they form a single reference under an anticipation analysis, rather than asserting them as an obviousness combination. After all, who wants to deal with motivation to combine and secondary considerations of non-obviousness if they don't have to?

But there is a risk. The primary reference truly has to incorporate—not just cite—the secondary reference, which not the most common situation. If the first reference merely cites the second, the court will likely find that they cannot be treated as a single reference.

Judge Andrews addressed that situation this week, when faced with a Daubert motion to strike an expert opinion that treated two references as one in its …

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