The defendant filed a motion to strike part of the plaintiff’s initial infringement contentions, focusing on infringement under the doctrine of equivalents and indirect infringement. The defendant asserted that the Local Patent Rules required an explanation of the infringement and plaintiff’s contentions provided none. The district court noted that Local…
Articles Posted by Stan Gibson
After Plaintiff Asserted Boilerplate Objections to Discovery, District Court Orders Plaintiff’s Objections Waived
The plaintiff filed a complaint against the defendant for patent infringement, trade dress infringement and unfair competition, among other claims, based on the defendants’ marketing and selling of portable vaporizers. The plaintiff contended the portable vaporizers incorporated the plaintiff’s technology. After serving discovery, the defendants filed a motion to compel…
District Court Grants Plaintiff’s Motion for Preliminary Injunction to Preclude Defendant from Discussing Case with Plaintiff’s Former President Who Now Works for Defendant
In this patent infringement action, the Defendant, GHP Group, Inc. (“GHP”), hired the Plaintiff’s, ProCom Heating, Inc. (“ProCom”), president during the litigation. The Plaintiff then filed a request for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to preclude the Defendant from discussing the case with the Plaintiff’s former president.…
Joseph Mellema Joins Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell LLP as Of Counsel in the Patent Litigation Group
Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell LLP is pleased to announce that Joseph J. Mellema has joined the Firm as Of Counsel in the Patent Litigation Group. Mellema will be resident in the Firm’s Orange County office. Mellema focuses on the protection and enforcement of all intellectual property rights, including patents,…
District Court Concludes that Plaintiff Is Collaterally Estopped from Asserting Two Related Patents After Court in Another Jurisdiction Found one of the Patents Invalid under Alice
In this patent infringement action, the Defendant moved for dismissal based on collateral estoppel and Alice contending that a prior district court had found the patents invalid for lack of patentable subject matter. Before applying the two-step Alice test, the district court took “judicial notice of the fact that Patent…
District Court Denies Motion for Preliminary Injunction Where Inter Partes Review (“IPR”) Pending on Claims from Different Patent But Similar to Patent-In-Suit
In earlier patent infringement litigation, the Plaintiff sued Ancestry.com DNA, LLC (“Ancestry”) in the District of Delaware (“Delaware litigation”) alleging infringement of U.S. Patent Number 8,221,381 (the “‘381 patent”). Ancestry subsequently filed an IPR seeking review of several claims of the ‘381 patent, and the PTAB issued an institution decision…
District Court Refuses to Amend Protective Order to Permit Expert, Who Was Former Employee of Competitor, to Review Confidential Documents
In this patent infringement action, the defendant, High 5 Games (“High 5”), moved for an order overruling the plaintiff’s, Konami Gaming, Inc. (“Konami”), objection to an expert witness viewing confidential information. In the alternative, High 5 moved to amend the stipulated protective order signed by the parties. As explained by…
CG Technology v. DraftKings District Court Stays Discovery Pending Motion to Dismiss Challenging Validity of Asserted Patents Under Alice
DraftKings filed a motion to stay discovery until the district court had an opportunity to rule on the a motion to dismiss. The motion to dismiss asserted that all of the ten patents-in-suit were invalid because they claimed patent-ineligible subject matter. CG Technology opposed the motion. The district court began…
Oracle v. Google: Violation of Protective Order to Disclose Confidential Information in Open Court
In this long standing litigation between Oracle and Google, a dispute arose over the protective order and whether the disclosure of certain information violated the terms of the protective order when it was disclosed in open court. The district court explained that “[b]y long tradition, when a lawyer wishes to…
District Court Holds that Document Retention and Destruction Policies Are Privileged under Court’s Default Discovery Standard
In this patent infringement action, the plaintiff sought production of the defendant’s document retention and document destruction policies. The defendant asserted that the request sought information protected by work product and attorney-client privilege. The plaintiff argued that the documents were merely corporate policies that could not be privileged. The district…