Published on:

by

In the next round of litigation in the ongoing war between Apple and Samsung over Smartphones, the district court ordered the parties to file a joint status report to address whether the new action should be stayed pending the appeal in the prior litigation. As explained by the district court, “[o]n march 7, 2013, the parties in this action filed a joint status report regarding whether they believed that a stay of this litigation was appropriate pending resolution of the appeal of the parties’ separate litigation in Civil Action No. 11-cv-01846″) See ECF No. 393.”

The district court then declined to stay the case pending the appeal based on the parties’ joint status report. “The District Court has broad discretion to stay proceedings as an incident to its power to control its own docket.” Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681, 706 (1997). In light of the parties’ joint status report, the Court will not stay the case. Accordingly, Defendants Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Samsung electronics America, Inc, and Samsung Telecommunications America, LLC shall not file a motion seeking this administrative relief. If circumstances change, the Court will notify the parties.”
Continue reading

Published on:

by

Carnegie Mellon University (“CMU”) filed a patent infringement action against Marvell asserting that Marvell had infringed two of its patents. Two months after the jury returned a verdict in excess of $1 Billion, Marvell filed a motion to compel certain documents based on entries on CMU’s privilege log that it wanted to use in its laches defense. CMU objected that there was no good cause for the untimely discovery of privileged materials.

As explained by the district court, “Marvell requested that laches be presented to the jury on an advisory basis, and given the parties’ argument on same during the pretrial conference, the Court ordered further briefing on the issues in their trial briefs on November 20, 2012. (Docket Nos. 637, 645, at 54-56; 648 at 192, 230-31). On November 28, 2012, the Court held that as Marvell had not proffered specific evidence to demonstrate when CMU first became aware of Marvell’s infringement or what evidentiary or economic prejudice Marvell had allegedly sustained due to CMU’s alleged delays tot hat point, the issue was not appropriately ‘teed up’ for a decision by an advisory jury and would be decided by the Court in a subsequent proceeding.”
Continue reading

Published on:

by

Core Wireless filed an action against Apple that alleged infringement of several patents in the Eastern District of Texas. Apple moved to transfer the case pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §1404(a).

As explained by the court, “Core Wireless is a corporation duly organized and existing under the laws of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, with a principal place of business at 16, Avenue paseur L-2310 Luxembourg. . . . Core Wireless maintains a wholly-owned subsidiary, Core Wireless Licensing Ltd. (“Core Wireless USA”), a Texas corporation with a principal place of business at 5700 Granite Parkway, Suite 960, Plano, TX 75024. . . .Core Wireless USA has 6 employees who live in or near Plano, TX, and is Director Jerry Mills lives full time in Dallas, TX. Id. at ¶ 16.”
Continue reading

Published on:

by

Plaintiffs Transunion Intelligence LLC and Trans Union LLC (collectively, “Transunion”) filed a patent infringement action against Search America over two patents that are directed to a computer-implemented method and software that is used to access a person’s eligibility to receive financial assistance for healthcare services. Transunion asserted both direct infringement and inducing infringement of one of the patents-in-suit.

Search America moved to dismiss the inducing infringement claim, asserting that Transunion had failed to plead that Search America had the specific intent to infringe the patent-in-suit. The district court disagreed. “As discussed at he hearing on Search America’s motion, however, the Court believes that Transunion has pleaded a plausible claim of induced infringement against Search America. In its complaint, Transunion pleads that Search America knew of the ‘937 patent, and Transunion pleads specific facts in support of that allegation – namely, that Search America studied the ‘937 patent to distinguish it from Search America’s own patent application. Fourth Am. Compl. para. 11. Transunion also alleges that Search America performed all but one of the steps of the ‘937 patent and that either Search America or a customer working with Search America performed the remaining step – namely, the inputting of patient data. Fourth Am. Compl. Ex. B at 2. Transunion further alleges that Search America’s customers performed the ‘inputting’ step by populating an on-line form created, controlled, and provided by Search America. Id.”
Continue reading

Published on:

by

In Gunn v. Minton, 2013 WL 610193 (Feb. 20, 2013), a unanimous United States Supreme Court determined that state courts can address legal malpractice disputes even though the underlying action may turn on issues involving patents. As expected, this ruling, which significantly narrowed federal court jurisdiction, is likely to impact many cases pending in district courts around the country.

As an example, in a case pending against Boston Scientific in district court, Boston Scientific immediately challenged the district court’s jurisdiction after the Gunn decision. “Just seven days before the jury trial schedule in this case, the United States Supreme Court handed down Gunn v. Minton, 2013 WL 610193 (Feb. 20, 2013). In a letter dated February 21, 2013, Boston Scientific brought this case to the Court’s attention, suggesting that under Gunn, the Court lacks jurisdiction over this case. By response dated February 22, 2013, Mirowski contended that jurisdiction existed and urged the Court to hold fast to the trial date.”
Continue reading

Published on:

by

Avago Technologies (“Avago”) filed a patent infringement action against IPtronics, Inc. (“IPtronics”) asserting infringement of two U.S. Patents, patent nos. 5,359,447 (the ‘447 patent) and the 6,947,456 (the ‘456 patent) in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. After a second amended complaint was filed, Avago filed a complaint at the International Trade Commission (“ITC”) alleging infringement of the ‘456 patent, but did not allege infringement of the ‘447 patent. The ITC instituted an investigation naming IPtronics as a respondent.

As noted by the district court, “[w]hen parallel actions are proceeding before a district court and the International Trade Commission, 28 U.S.C. § 1659 requires the district court to stay ‘Any claim that involves the same issues involved in the proceeding before the Commission’ until the ‘Determination of the Commission becomes final” upon request by ‘a party to a civil action that is also a respondent in the proceedings before the [ITC].'”
Continue reading

Published on:

by

In this patent infringement action between Microsoft and Motorola, Motorola asserted certain claims of various patents against Microsoft, including claims that included “means for decoding” and “means for using” limitations. Motorola asserted that Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 infringed the asserted claims of the patents-in-suit. Microsoft moved for partial summary judgment that the claims that included these means-plus-function limitations were indefinite under 35 U.S.C. §112.

As explained by the district court, “[a]t a high level, the Patents-in-Suit disclose systems and methods for encoding and decoding a bitstream (or sequence) of digital video data.3 (See generally ‘374 Patent; ‘375 Patent; ‘376 Patent.) The Patents-in-Suit explain that a picture in a digital video sequence can either be encoded as a “frame,” comprising consecutives lines of the picture, or as two “fields,” with the top field comprising the odd-numbered lines of the picture and the bottom field comprising the even-numbered lines of the picture. (‘374 Patent at 1:42-58.) While encoding a picture in frame or field mode was done in prior art on a picture-by-picture basis (id. at 4:17-34), the summary of the invention states, “[t]he method entails encoding and decoding each of the macroblocks in each picture in said stream of pictures in either frame mode or in field mode.” (Id. at 2:58-60 (emphasis added).)”
Continue reading

Published on:

by

ABT Systems, LLC (“ABT”) filed an action against Emerson Electric Co. (“Emerson”). As the case proceeded to trial, the district court made some key rulings on motions in limine. In particular, the district court addressed whether customer product reviews on the Internet were admissible over a hearsay objection.
Continue reading

Published on:

by

TravelClick, Inc. (“TravelClick”) filed a declaratory judgment action against defendants Variant Holdings, LLC and Variant, Inc. (“Variant”), seeking a declaration that its iHotelier online hotel reservation system did not infringe Variant’s patent number 7,626,044 (the ‘044 patent). Variant filed a motion to transfer the case to the Eastern District of Texas based on the “first-filed” rule or 28 U.S.C. §1404(a) on the grounds that the Eastern District of Texas is a more convenient forum and transfer will serve the interests of justice.

In analyzing the motion, the district court found that the convenience factor did not weigh heavily in either direction. “Plaintiff does not identify any connection to Wisconsin that would make litigating in this state more convenient for it. Plaintiff is a Delaware corporation, headquartered in New York, with offices in Schaumburg, Illinois; Atlanta, Georgia, Orlando, Florida; Houston, Texas and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Only 16 of plaintiff’s 2000 customers that use the iHotelier system are located in Wisconsin. One of the defendants, Variant, Inc. is headquartered in this district, though it has no employees or present activities in this district and supports a transfer to Texas. (Its sole employee recently moved from Missouri to Texas.) The other defendant, Variant Holdings, LLC is headquartered in Nevis and has no employees. No matter where the case proceeds, the venue will be more convenient for some parties than others.”
Continue reading

Published on:

by

After the jury found defendant A10 Networks (“A10”) liable for misappropriation of trade secrets and infringement of patents owned by Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. et al (“Brocade”), the court entered two permanent injunctions against A10, one that prohibited additional patent infringement and another that applied to the misappropriation of trade secrets. Subsequently, A10 moved to stay the injunctions pending appeal or, in the alternative, to stay pending a request for a stay from the Federal Circuit, a modification to the injunction to include a sunset provision or a modification to the terms of the trade secret injunction.

First, the court addressed whether A10 was likely to succeed on appeal. The court found these arguments merely repeated from the arguments made in A10’s motion for judgment as a matter of law and that they were once again without merit. The court also found that A10 had not demonstrated irreparable injury and the balance of hardships also tipped in favor of Brocade because Brocade and A10 are direct competitors. Accordingly, the court declined to stay the injunction with respect to patent infringement.
Continue reading