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Plaintiff West View Research (“West View”) filed five separate patent infringement complaints on the same date against various automobile manufacturers. Each action asserted a combination of patents, all from the same patent family, for a total of eleven asserted patents. The district ourt consolidated the five for purposes of discovery and claim construction.

As part of the Case Management Order, the district court ordered West View to identify no more than seven claims from each patent to assert against the Defendants. For each asserted claim, the district court ordered West View to provide preliminary infringement contentions.
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The parties filed opposing motions against each side’s expert witness over a dispute between the parties as to what the word “use” means. In its Markman order, the district court had construed the term “Internet Protocol network” (“an Internet Protocol network,” “network utilizing at least one Internet Protocol,” and “a network utilizing at least one Internet Protocol”) to mean “an untrusted network using any protocol of the Internet Protocol Suite including at least one of IP, TCP/IP, UDP/IP, HTTP, and HTTP/IP. . . .”
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Defendants LG Electronics Inc. and LG Electronics U.S.A., Inc. (collectively, “LG”) filed a motion to clarify the district court’s order transferring the case to the district of New Jersey, seeking a ruling that the court’s deadlines were suspended in view of the transfer order. The district court had granted LG’s motion to transfer on § 1404(a) convenience grounds.

Prior to the transfer order, the district court had entered a scheduling order that set a number of deadlines through trial, including a deadline for LG’s Responsive Claim Construction brief. LG’s motion asked the court to find that the transfer order suspended all pending deadlines.
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In this patent infringement action, Meyer Products LLC (“Meyer Products” or “defendant”) filed a motion to stay the case pending an inter partes review. After the motion was filed, the court set a briefing schedule. As part of its standard operating procedure, the court entered a temporary stay of the proceeding until defendant’s motion could be decided on the merits.

In the middle of the briefing schedule and before plaintiff’s opposition to the motion for stay was due to be filed, plaintiff filed an “emergency” motion to lift the temporary stay.
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Defendants filed an emergency motion to stay the case pending an appeal of the PTAB’s decision that invalidated all of the asserted claims in the patent-in-suit. Earlier in this case, Defendants had petitioned for inter partes review (“IPR”) of all of the claims at issue in the patent. The PTAB granted review, and the Defendants subsequently moved for a stay pending completion of the IPR.

Although the court acknowledged that the IPR process had the potential to simplify issues for trial, the court determined “that a stay was not justified because the parties had made significant progress toward trial and a stay would deny the Plaintiff an expeditious resolution of its patent rights.” As a result, the litigation and the IPR proceeded concurrently.
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The plaintiff CRFD Research, Inc. (“CRFD”) filed a patent infringement action defendants Dish Network Corporation, Dish DBS Corporation, Dish Network L.L.C., Echostar Corporation, and Echostar Technologies L.L.C. (collectively, “Dish Network”). CRFD also filed separate actions against defendants Hulu, LLC (“Hulu”), Netflix, Inc. (“Netflix”), and Spotify USA Inc. (“Spotify”). CRFD alleges that each of the above-captioned defendants infringe U.S. Patent No. 7,191,233 (“the ‘233 Patent”).

Certain of the defendants, Hulu, Netflix, and Spotify, filed a petition for inter partes review (“IPR”) of the ‘233 Patent with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”). Those same defendants then filed a motion to stay the proceeding pending the review by the PTAB, even though the PTAB had not yet accepted the petition for hearing. Dish Network then filed a separate petition for IPR and also filed a motion to join the other defendants’ Joint Motion to Stay.
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Defendant Extended Disc North America, Inc. (“EDNA”) filed a motion for summary judgment of non-infringement and invalidity, and, alternatively, a motion to dismiss against plaintiff Target Training International, Ltd.’s (“TTI”). TTI had filed its complaint for patent infringement against EDNA on September 17, 2010, alleging that EDNA directly infringed at least Claim 1 of the patent-in-suit by performing the methods claimed in the patent and by using or selling services that use the methods claimed in the patent.

Extended DISC International, Ltd. (“EDI”) filed a request for ex parte reexamination of the patent-in-suit with the United States Patent & Trademark Office (“PTO”). EDNA moved to stay the case pending the outcome of the reexamination. The court initially denied the motion to stay. On January 6, 2012, the PTO issued a final office action rejecting all of the claims in the patent-in-suit. The court subsequently issued an order staying the case until the PTO concluded reexamination and a certificate of reexamination was issued.
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After the plaintiff Cordelia Lighting, Inc. (“Cordelia”) obtained a preliminary injunction against Zhejiang Yankon Grp. (“Yankon”), Cordelia sought to add certain retailers to the injunction. Cordelia owns U.S. Patent No. 8,474,204 (“the ‘204 Patent”), which is entitled “Recessed LED Lighting Fixture” and describes a fixture designed to hold an LED light bulb. Cordelia alleged that Yankon infringed the ‘204 Patent by making and selling a product called the “Utilitec Pro LED Recessed Retrofit Downlight” Yankon sells these products to Lowe’s Companies, Inc. and Lowe’s Home Centers, LLC (“Lowe’s”).

In its effort to add Lowe’s to the injunction, Cordelia argued that Cordelia first argued that Lowe’s should be enjoined because it is in “active concert or participation” with Yankon. The district court explained that “[s]ignificant to the analysis here, ‘[a]ctions that aid and abet in violating the injunction must occur after the injunction is imposed for the purposes of Rule 65(d)(2)(C).’ Blockowicz v. Williams, 630 F.3d 563, 568 (7th Cir. 2010). It is undisputed that Yankon manufactures the Accused Products in China and then sells them to Lowe’s, freight on board, in China. (See Declaration of Stephen Lobbin, Doc. No. 107-1, Ex. E (Deposition of Kevin Zhao at 36:15¬37:2).) In other words, once Yankon sells a unit of product to Lowe’s, Yankon receives payment and no longer has any involvement with the end sales of the products to consumers. The Injunction Order prevents Yankon from making, selling, or importing the Accused Products. (Injunction Order at 14.) To be properly subject to the Injunction Order, Lowe’s would have to aid or abet, or be a privy to, Yankon taking such actions. But, Lowe’s fulfills neither requirement; it is hoping to sell off its own accumulated inventory of the Accused Products. Lowe’s has already purchased this inventory, and is not continuing to purchase Accused Products from Yankon (which would clearly constitute a violation of the Injunction Order).
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Defendants filed a motion to compel Adaptix to re-produce documents that Adaptix had clawed back on the grounds of privilege. Adaptix had early produced the documents in several productions. The Defendants argued in the motion that even if Adaptix could demonstrate the documents are privileged, Adaptix waived the privilege because Defendants had notified Adaptix that they were relying on the documents at least nine months before Adaptix sent its clawback letter. Defendants pointed out that they had relied on information disclosed in the documents in depositions, expert reports, and briefing, all without any objection from Adaptix.

In response, Adaptix asserted that its data vendor erroneously produced the documents to Defendants without Adaptix knowledge even though they had been properly tagged as privileged. Adaptix also asserted that the documents fell within the protections of the attorney client work product doctrine because they pertained to testing that was performed for purposes of litigation at the direction of Adaptix’s attorneys. Adaptix then argued that it was only in March of 2015 that it “eventually realized the error of Defendants’ access to the documents at issue and promptly sent a letter clawing them back.”
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Defendant Murphy USA Inc. (“Murphy”) filed a motion for summary judgment of invalidity as to certain claim U.S. Patent No. 6,076,071 (“the ‘071 Patent”) and one claim of U.S. Patent No. 6,513,016 (“the ‘016 Patent”) on the grounds that the patents are directed to non-patentable subject matter under 35 U.S.C § 101. In its motion, Murphy contended that “[t]he Asserted Claims, directed to an ‘automated product pricing system,’ cover nothing more than the abstract idea of changing prices from a central location using known electronic components, and are not patent-eligible under § 101.” Murphy also presented a chart of one of the claims to demonstrate why each discrete claimed “principle” is purportedly accomplished in a conventional manner.

The district court began its analysis by noting that”[p]atent claims enjoy a presumption of validity. 35 U.S.C. § 282. Beyond listing the claimed elements in a column entitled ‘Abstract Commercial Principle,’ Defendant has failed to articulate convincingly why it believes the ‘automated product pricing system’ of the Asserted Claims is considered abstract under the law. By evaluating Claim 24 of the ‘071 Patent as a whole, the court concludes the Asserted Claims are not abstract under the law.”
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