The ongoing patent battles between Apple and Samsung continue to pick up speed and show no signs of slowing down anytime soon. During the summer, Apple filed a motion for a preliminary injunction on certain of its patents and the district court ordered limited initial discovery for the topics raised…
Multimedia Patent Trust (“MPT”) filed a patent infringement action against several defendants, including DirecTV and Vizio, which alleged infringement of multiple patents related to video compression technology. DirecTV and Vizio answered the complaint an alleged affirmative defenses of patent exhaustion and license. The parties filed cross motions for summary judgment…
It appears that the announced death of inequitable conduct claims may have been premature. As described below, yet another court allowed such claims to survive summary judgment. A court in the Northern District of Illinois denied summary judgment on the plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment of no unenforceability. Citing the…
In a ruling that is likely to become more and more common after the passage of the America Invents Act, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California dismissed all but one of the defendants in a patent infringement action for improper joinder. In February 2010, the…
Plaintiff AlmondNet, Inc. filed a patent infringement action against Microsoft Corporation based on four patents pertaining to Internet advertising. Microsoft filed several affirmative defenses and counterclaims against AlmondNet, including a defense and counterclaim that AlmondNet engaged in inequitable conduct before the PTO by failing to disclose three articles related to…
Plaintiff filed a patent infringement action against the defendant alleging that certain of defendant’s T-shirt transfer products infringed plaintiff’s patent. Defendant filed an answer and counterclaim which accused the plaintiff of inequitable conduct in amending its patent during a reissuance of the patent. Defendant claimed that plaintiff deliberately pursued a…
Plaintiff Hurricane Shooters, LLC sought summary judgment of no invalidity on Defendant’s defenses of prior inventorship under Section 102(g) and lack of utility under Section 101. The patents-in-suit involve drinking cups for serving mixed drinks in bars and restaurants having a plural chamber that optimizes the mixing of fluids as…
As the battle between Oracle and Google approaches nearer to trial, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California has denied Google’s objection to the selection of the pool of jurors who will hear the trial. The district court previously notified Oracle and Google that the district…
In this patent infringement suit, the parties were unable to agree upon a written Electronically Stored Information (“ESI”) protocol. Before the protocol was executed, the district court ordered the parties to comply with all scheduling orders and production deadliness regardless of whether they had agreed upon a final written agreement…
Abaxis, Inc. (“Abaxis”) filed a patent infringement action against Cepheid asserting that Cepheid infringed four of Abaxis’ patents. In its answer, Cepheid asserted a defense of inequitable conduct and Abaxis moved to dismiss the defense. The United States District Court for the Northern District of California granted the motion. In…