A Blog About Intellectual Property Litigation and the District of Delaware


RGA
The Honorable Richard G. Andrews

We keep writing about how hard it is to win a motion to strike in D. Del., which is generally true. That said, it's still possible to get late-disclosed theories and evidence excluded, especially when there's no good explanation for the delay.

Yesterday afternoon, one plaintiff learned that lesson the hard way. As often happens, the plaintiff argued that the defendant's expert raised new opinions on motivation-to-combine in his reply report.

But instead of moving to strike (or seeking leave to submit a sur-rebuttal report, or dealing with the issue during expert depositions...), the plaintiff simply waited until summary judgment briefing. There, it submitted a rebuttal declaration from its own expert in support of its answering brief on invalidity. …

Hatchet on Log
Andrew E. Russell, CC BY 2.0

Judge Andrews issued an interesting opinion on Wednesday discussing the level of control necessary for divided infringement -- an issue that has not come up much in the district.

As the Federal Circuit laid out in Akamai Techs., Inc. v. Limelight Networks, Inc., 797 F.3d 1020, (Fed. Cir. 2015), divided infringement requires the parties that collectively perform all of the method steps to be part of a joint enterprise, or for one of them to "direct or control the other's performance." Id. at 1022–23.

This "direct or control" requirement has historically been a pretty good grounds for motions to dismiss or summary judgment in the district. In the 5 years since Akamai …

Daubert motions are as tough as they are common. It seems every case spawns at least one on each side, and the vast majority are denied with the Court finding that any deficiencies in the expert's methodologies are merely grounds for exploration on cross-examination.

One type that consistently beats these odds (at least in Delaware) is directed to damages experts that attempt to use the damages figures from prior jury verdicts as starting points for a hypothetical negotiation.

Judge Andrews in particular has held a hard line on this issue as shown in his decision on Wednesday in Sprint Communications Company L.P. v. Charter Communications, Inc, C.A. No. 17-1734-RGA, D.I. 573 (D. Del. Mar. 16, 2021). …

Objections to Reports and Recommendations are something like an appeal. The District Judge is tasked with addressing the alleged errors of the Magistrate Judge de novo only to the extent they are "properly objected to." Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b)(3). Thus, it is the job of the parties to raise objections to an R&R in a procedurally proper way. If they fail to do so, the District Judge is hamstrung to an extent. This outcome was on display in a recent ruling by Judge Andrews, in which both sides failed to properly object to a portion of the Magistrate Judge's R&R, leaving a patent with "serious" validity problems alive (for now).

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 …

Law360 published an article yesterday by Carrie Garrison about an "exciting shift in the legal world," after Justice Thomas used the parenthetical "(cleaned up)" in a SCOTUS opinion:

Under that doctrine as it existed in 1946, a judgment is “on the merits” if the underlying decision “actually passes directly on the substance of a particular claim before the court.” Id., at 501–502 (cleaned up).

This parenthetical, as Ms. Garrison points out, was suggested in 2017 as an alternative to longer parentheticals like "(internal quotation marks omitted)" under Bluebook Rules 1.5 and 5.2.

This sounds like a great way to save some space, particularly in light of the ongoing adoption of word limits by the District of Delaware …

The first part of this headline is no surprise. As long as a motion to amend is filed before the deadline in the scheduling order, it's very hard to lose. In fact, Judge Andrews didn't even issue a written opinion on this one (another plug for the importance of monitoring oral orders in D. Del.):

I do not see undue delay, and Defendant basically concedes that any prejudice can be pretty easily ameliorated. The Court is not concerned about the prospect of a five-day trial with seven patents from seven families. That scenario will never come to pass.

The surprising part is what happened next. After dismissing the defendant's concerns, Judge Andrews ordered the plaintiffs to narrow their …

Envelope with Letter
Brando Makes Branding, Unsplash

One common question for local counsel is "can we file something asking the Court to rule on our motion"? And the answer is usually something along the lines of "no," except in certain situations.

Last week we wrote about an example of the risks of an unwarranted request to expedite consideration of a motion.

This week I saw an example of a letter near the other end of the spectrum, in which a party asked gently urged the Court to consider a pending motion and got a good result.

A Letter That Worked

Plaintiff had moved for leave to amend their complaint to add two patents to a five-patent case, where all of the …

Piper Saratoga Plane
Alan Lebeda, CC BY 2.0

Last week, Judge Andrews granted a motion for reargument in a products liability diversity action, permitting further argument on summary judgment after the Court had previously ended the case by finding against plaintiff at summary judgment.

In its original opinion, nearly a year ago, the Court found that a federal statute that limits products liability for aircraft parts manufacturers blocked recovery here, and entered a judgment for defendant on all claims.

Plaintiff's motion for reargument asserted that, in addition to bringing actions against defendant as a "manufacturer," it had asserted claims based on the defendant's role as a "rebuilder and seller" of airline parts, and then detailed an argument based on the statutory language, …

Although the Pennypack factors for exclusion are notoriously difficult to meet, judges in D. Del. have been excluding late-disclosed theories more frequently than in the past.

Case in point: on Friday, Judge Andrews granted a motion to strike DOE theories asserted for the first time in an opening expert report. The plaintiff offered a number of excuses for disclosing the theories when it did—"it was only able to collect evidence to support its new DOE theories" after a COVID-delayed source code review, it lacked supporting evidence until a technical deposition in November 2020, and so on.

Judge Andrews not only rejected these excuses, but took it a step further—coming very close to finding that the plaintiff acted in …