Patent Lawyer Blog
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 technology infringed the ‘951Patent (ii) that defendant acquired OpenDNS in 2015 and (iii) that defendant incorporated the allegedly infringing OpenDNS technology into the Accused Security Products.”
To analyze whether the allegations were sufficient, the district court explained that “[a]t the motion to dismiss stage, courts have concluded that a plaintiff must “plead facts showing willfulness” in order to avoid dismissal of a willful infringement claim. Cont? Circuits LLC v. Intel Corp., No. CV16-2026 PHX DGC, 2017 WL 2651709, at *7 (D. Ariz. June 19, 2017) (collecting cases). In this respect, the complaint must allege, as a “prerequisite” to a willfulness claim, that the defendant had “[k]nowledge of the patent alleged to be willfully infringed.” See WBIP, LLC v. Kohler Co., 829 F.3d 1317, 1341 (Fed. Cir. 2016). Yet, a plaintiff has not plausibly alleged willful infringement if he alleges only that “the evidence shows that the infringer knew about the patent and nothing more.” Halo Elecs., Inc. v. Pulse Elecs., Inc., 136 S. Ct. 1923, 1936 (2016) (Breyer, J., concurring). As courts have sensibly concluded, the complaint must also allege facts that support a plausible inference that the defendant’s behavior was “egregious,” such as facts showing that defendant was put on notice or was otherwise subjectively aware of the risk that its conduct constituted infringement. See, e.g., Puget Bioventures, LLC v. Biomet Orthopedics LLC, 325 F. Supp. 3d 899, 911 (N.D. Ind. 2018); Finjan, Inc. v. Cisco Systems, Inc., No. 17-CV-00072-BLF, 2018 WL 7131650, at *4-5 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 6, 2018) (collecting cases).”
After reviewing the relevant case law, the district court noted that “[i]t is a close call whether the facts alleged in the First Amended Complaint are sufficient to support a plausible inference that, prior to the initiation of the instant infringement suit, defendant (i) knew of the ‘951 Patent and (ii) was subjectively aware of the risk that its conduct infringed the ‘951 Patent. In its response to defendant’s motion, plaintiff argues that OpenDNS’s knowledge of the ‘951 Patent and awareness of the infringing nature of its technology are attributable to defendant by virtue of defendant’s acquisition of OpenDNS in 2015.”
In analyzing the motion, the district court explained that it had previously “determined that this case was frivolous and that plaintiff had litigated it in an unreasonable manner, rending the exceptional and entitling defendant to an award of attorneys’ fees. None of those underlying facts have changed, and plaintiff does not argue that they have.”
In this patent infringement action, the defendants, Synergistics, Inc. (“Synergistics”), filed a motion to dismiss the complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction. The plaintiff, Parabit Systems, Inc. (“Parabit”), opposed the motion on the ground that it was not required to establish personal jurisdiction in the complaint and that Synergistics had failed to come forward with any evidence that the district court did not have personal jurisdiction over it.
sidestep its own knowledge—and when it gained such knowledge—about the existence and functionality of Defendants’ customized BRAIN shock for Specialized. Instead, FOX Factory seeks to direct the court’s attention to Defendants’ discovery shortcomings. But in considering good cause, this court first focuses on whether the original deadline could have been met with reasonable diligence by Plaintiffs, not any bad faith by Defendants. Colorado Visionary Academy, 194 F.R.D. at 687. Using this framework, based on the record before it, this court is not persuaded that FOX Factory exercised adequate diligence to warrant amendment of its Final Infringement Contentions at this late juncture.”
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, sanction order and to appear for a court hearing.
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 limited liability company (“HC1”) and, potentially, Halo Couture, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company (“HC2”), which were apparently “sister companies” of IDC and share a common parent.
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 discovery would promote judicial efficiency and conserve the Parties’ resources, which would include reducing the attorney’s fees that would be spent on the case should the dispositive motion be granted.
During discovery, Sprint responded that it had received an email several years before the lawsuit was filed with an offer to purchase the patent-in-suit. An attachment to the email identified and described the patent-in-suit. Although the general counsel for Sprint forwarded the email and attachment to several Sprint employees, Sprint explained that it believed the attachment was never opened. TC Technology took the deposition of one of these employees and then filed a motion to amend the complaint to add a claim for willful infringement. Because the motion was filed after the cut-off established to amend the pleadings, TC Technology could not amend the complaint without a showing of good cause.
Stuebing had previously served multiple discovery requests, including interrogatories and document requests. Over a year after responses to the discovery requests were due, the district court ordered the defendant to fully respond to the requests in several different court orders. Despite these orders, the defendant provided Stuebing with incomplete discovery information.