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Court Denies “Emergency” Motion to Lift Temporary Stay Noting That Plaintiff “Is Palpably Irritated,” But “That’s Not Going to Cut It”

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In this patent infringement action, Meyer Products LLC (“Meyer Products” or “defendant”) filed a motion to stay the case pending an inter partes review. After the motion was filed, the court set a briefing schedule. As part of its standard operating procedure, the court entered a temporary stay of the proceeding until defendant’s motion could be decided on the merits.

In the middle of the briefing schedule and before plaintiff’s opposition to the motion for stay was due to be filed, plaintiff filed an “emergency” motion to lift the temporary stay.

The court was not pleased with the “emergency” and questioned why the plaintiff would file such a motion. “What is the ’emergency’ that prompted plaintiff to file this motion in the midst of briefing defendant’s motion? Plaintiff doesn’t say. Plaintiff, however, is palpably irritated that the court sua sponte entered a temporary stay. Duly noted, but that’s not going to cut it.”

The court went on to explain that “[t]he court’s schedule accounts for this down time, not just with the floating front-end dates but also with all of the calendared dates that follow. Even if the court were to lift the temporary stay, none of the calendared dates would move forward.”

Further, the court found that “no one suffers any prejudice from the temporary stay, and this stay preserves the status quo briefly while the court decides whether to grant the longer stay that defendant seeks during inter partes review.”

Accordingly, the court denied the “emergency” motion to lift the temporary stay.

Douglas Dynamics, LLC v. Meyer Products LLC, Case No. 3-14-cv-00886 (W.D. Wisc. June 8, 2015)

The authors of www.PatentLawyerBlog.com are patent trial lawyers at Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell LLP. For more information about this case, contact Stan Gibson at 310.201.3548 or SGibson@jmbm.com.