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Articles Posted in District Courts

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Rocksmith Loses its Rock as Interactive Video Game Patent Found Invalid

Plaintiffs, Ubisoft Entertainment, S.A. and Ubisoft, Inc. (collectively, “Ubisoft”) are developers and publishers of the video game Rocksmith and own patent no. 9,839,852 (“the ‘852 patent”), which is entitled “interactive guitar game.” Ubisoft filed a complaint against the defendant, Yousician, a software provider for learning to play musical instruments, for…

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Instructing Employees Not to Read Third Party Patents Insufficient to Establish Willful Blindness

In this patent infringement action, Intel filed a motion to dismiss the patent infringement claims for direct and indirect infringement pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). The plaintiff, VSLI Technology (“VLSI”), opposed the motion and argued that its complaint stated facts sufficient to state claims for relief. In its motion, Intel asserted…

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Ethicon v. Covidien: District Court Grants Motion for Summary Judgment on Absence of Acceptable Non-Infringing Alternatives Where It Would Have Taken Ten Months to Implement the Non-Infringing Alternatives

Ethicon filed a motion for summary judgment on one of the Panduit factors that are necessary to obtain lost profits. In its motion, Ethicon contended that Covidien’s alleged non-infringing alternatives were neither acceptable nor available. In evaluating the motion, the district court explained that a “noninfringing alternative need not be…

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Bushnell v. Cisco: District Court Dismisses Willfulness Allegations Solely Based on Knowledge of Patents by Acquired Entity

Cisco moved to dismiss the plaintiff’s patent infringement complaint pre-lawsuit willfulness allegations. As the district court explained, the allegations in the first amended complaint asserted: “(i) that an investor of both the owner of the ‘951 Patent and of OpenDNS informed unspecified employees or agents of OpenDNS that certain OpenDNS…

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District Court Grants Supplemental Motion for Award of Attorneys’ Fees after Federal Circuit Affirms Dismissal on Appeal

After the district court dismissed plaintiff’s patent infringement claims, finding the patents directed to patent-ineligible subject matter, and awarded attorneys’ fees based on the exceptional case doctrine, the Federal Circuit affirmed both determinations. The defendant filed a supplemental motion for attorneys’ fees seeking to recover attorneys’ fees for the appellate…

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District Court Dismisses Complaint with Prejudice for Plaintiff’s Failure to Participate in Discovery and for Failure to Comply with Court Orders

In this patent infringement action, the defendant moved to dismiss the plaintiff’s complaint for the plaintiff’s failure to participate in discovery and for ignoring several court orders. The motion explained that dismissal sanctions were appropriate in the light of, among other things, the plaintiff’s failure to comply with court orders,…

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Motion to Disqualify Based on Representation of “Sister” Companies Denied Where There Was No Showing of Actual Conflict or Possession of Confidential Information

In this patent infringement action, the plaintiff, International Designs Corporation, LLC (“IDC”), moved to disqualify the counsel for defendant Hair Art Int’l, Inc. (“Hair Art”).   IDC moved to disqualify counsel for Hair Art on the grounds that Hair Art’s counsel also represented/represents an entity named Halo Couture, LLC, a California…

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District Court Denies Motion to Stay Pending Resolution of Dispositive Motion

In this patent infringement action, the defendant, Playmonster LLC (“Playmonster”), requested that the district court stay discovery during the pendency of its forthcoming dispositive motion. As part of its request, Playmonster contended that a dispositive motion “would be the most efficient resolution of this case,” and that a stay of…

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District Order Issues Sanctions Deeming Defendant’s Summary Of Infringing Sales Established As True Where Defendant Failed to Comply With Multiple Court Orders

In this patent infringement action, the plaintiff, Stuebing Automatic Machine Co. (“Stuebing”) filed a motion for violation of multiple discovery orders against the defendant. As part of the motion, Stuebing sought issue sanctions, including to have certain sales information deemed established. Stuebing had previously served multiple discovery requests, including interrogatories…

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District Court Excludes Opinion Of Damage Expert On Licenses That Were Not Economically Comparable

The plaintiff, Bayer, moved to exclude the opinion of the defendant’s damage expert, Dr. Rausser, for failing to show that the licenses that he used for his reasonable royalty analysis were technologically or economically comparable to the license resulting from the hypothetical negotiation.  The district court agreed with Bayer on…

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