In a recent case in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, the court denied defendants’ motion to transfer the case to the District of New Jersey. The court’s analysis focused primarily on whether the case could have originally been filed in the District of New…
Patent Lawyer Blog
The Federal Circuit’s Therasense Decision Is Having Its Intended Effect Of Reigning In Inequitable Conduct Claims
The Federal Circuit’s en banc decision in Therasense v. Becton, Dickinson & Co., is having its intended effect of reigning in inequitable conduct claims. In a recent decision, Judge Otero of the United States District Court for the Central District of California granted summary judgment of no unenforceability on defendant’s…
Sanctions Granted for Repeated Discovery Misconduct and Attorneys’ Fees Awarded for Counsel’s Fabricated E-Mail
Plaintiff brought a patent infringement action alleging direct infringement of a single patent. The defendant, a corporation, sought an extension of time to respond to the complaint through a request from its CEO. Because corporations cannot represented themselves and must instead be represented by a licensed attorney, the district court…
Plaintiff’s Discovery Misconduct Leads To Award of $800,000 in Attorneys’ Fees
In a patent infringement action, the district court granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment based on the on sale bar and dismissed plaintiff’s claims with prejudice. Defendants then requested that the district court find the case exceptional due plaintiff’s litigation misconduct. Based on that misconduct, the district court found that…
Delaware District Court Denies Production of Documents Pertaining to Third-Party Licensing Company Holding That the Documents Are Protected by the Common Interest Privilege
Xerox Corporation (“Xerox”) filed a patent infringement action against Google and Yahoo! in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware. After construing certain terms of the patent-in-suit as part of a claim construction proceeding, the district court resolved a discovery dispute between the parties over the production…
Another Motion to Transfer Denied in Delaware Even Where Plaintiff, Defendant and Witnesses Are Located in California
It is fast becoming clear that it is very difficult to transfer a patent infringement case out of the United States District Court for the District of Delaware when the defendant is incorporated in Delaware. In this case, Netgear sued Ruckus Wireless for patent infringement in the District of Delaware.…
Retirement of Texas Judges Leads to Transfer Out of Texas
In a patent case brought by Plaintiff Rembrandt Vision Technologies, L.P. (“Rembrandt”) against Defendant Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Inc. (“J&J”) in the Eastern District of Texas, J&J moved to transfer the case to the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida. Central to the Judge Ward’s…
Court Orders Production of Sales Evaluation Files for Products Accused of Infringement
In a patent infringement action between Kimberly-Clark (“K-C”) and First Quality Baby Products (“First Quality”) pending in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, K-C filed a motion to compel First Quality to produce sales evaluation files relating to products accused of infringement. K-C asserted that…
Failure to Mark with Patent Numbers Limits Pre-Suit Filing Damages
In a recent case from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, the district court granted defendants’ motion to limit damages for failure to mark for all but one of the patents-in-suit. Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. §287(a), a patentee must either mark a patented product or…
Motion for Partial Summary Judgment of Invalidity Denied Where Means-Plus-Function Limitations Were Definite
The United States District Court for the Central District of California denied a motion for partial summary judgment finding that certain means-plus-function limitations were sufficiently definite to survive a challenge to the patent’s validity. The plaintiff filed a patent infringement action against the defendant over a patent that relates to…