In this dispute over inventorship of a patent, Affymetrix (“Affymetrix”) and Gregory Kirk (“Mr. Kirk”) sought to correct U.S. Patent Nos. 7,510,481 and 7,612,020 to add Mr. Kirk as one of the inventors on the patents. The patents are directed to a method and an apparatus for conducting genetic testing…
In one of several patent battles that Apple is waging across the country against Google’s Android operating system, Motorola moved to exclude the testimony of one of the inventors of the patent-in-suit. As part of determining this motion, the district court, Judge Posner, requested that Apple answer several questions in…
Zep Solar Inc. (“Zep”) filed a patent infringement action against several defendants. Two of the defendants, Lightway Green new Energy Company, LTD (“Lightway”) and Brightway Global LLC (“Brightway”) answered and counterclaimed with an allegation of inequitable conduct. Zep moved to strike or dismiss the counterclaim and affirmative defense. As the…
In a patent case pending before Judge Selna in the Central District of California, Defendant Nestlé USA, Inc. (“Nestlé”) moved pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) to dismiss Plaintiff Network Signatures, Inc.’s (“NSI”) infringement claims under Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007) and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S.Ct.…
And so began a recent order from Judge Posner in the ongoing dispute between Apple and Motorola over various patents directed to features of smart phones. Apple and Motorola have each asserted patent claims against the other and, as the case approaches trial, Judge Posner has issued an order regarding…
On remand to the district court after the Federal Circuit’s en banc decision in Therasense v. Becton, Dickinson and Co., the district court reviewed the procedural posture of the case and the landmark Therasense decision. The district court noted that “Therasense worked a seismic shift in the law of inequitable…
ArrivalStar filed a motion seeking to extend the deadline for providing its preliminary infringement contentions arguing that the district court’s scheduling order only provided fourteen days for ArrivalStar to prepare and serve its preliminary infringement contentions, that ArrivalStar was misled by Enroute Systems, the opposing party, into believing that the…
In the ongoing struggle between Apple and Motorola over claims of patent infringement in just one of many battles that is taking place across the country over smart phones, both parties proposed claim constructions that were not particularly well-written for lay jurors. After reviewing the claim construction briefs and stating…
Plaintiff moved to compel the production of documents that were listed on the defendants’ privilege logs. The district court explained the disputed documents as follows: “The disputed documents at issue were either authored by Ablation Frontiers, Inc.’s (“AFI”) outside counsel for AFI, or Medtronic’s outside counsel for Medtronic. The documents…
Interwoven moved to stay all proceedings pending the outcome of an ex parte reexamination of the two patents-in-suit. Interwoven asserted that a stay was warranted because the defendant appeared unprepared to litigate and a reexamination would likely modify the issues in the case, with no undue burden to the defendant.…