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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.”
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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].'”
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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).)”
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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.
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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.”
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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.
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In this patent infringement action, Vinotemp International (“Vinotemp”) brought suit against Wine Master Cellars, LLP (“Wine Master”). Wine Master filed a counterclaim for patent infringement. Prior to trial, Vinotemp moved to preclude Wine Master from offering evidence of damages at trial.

As explained by the district court, “Vinotemp moves to exclude Wine Master’s evidence of damages on two grounds: (1) Wine Master failed to properly disclose its damages categories and computations under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 26(a)(1)(A)(iii) and (e); and (2) Wine Master’s damages are impermissibly speculative.”
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Positive Technologies, Inc. (“Positive Technologies”) filed a patent infringement action against Sony Electronics and Amazon, among others. Amazon filed a motion for entry of the Federal Circuit Advisory Council’s Model Order regarding E-Discovery in Patent Cases (the “Model Order”). The Model Order provides for specific limits on e-discovery.

There are several provisions of the Model Order that should be noted in particular:

“General ESI production requests under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 34 and 45 shall not include metadata absent a showing of good cause. However, fields showing the date and time that the document was sent and received, as well as the complete distribution list, shall generally be included in the production.”
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Plaintiff Benjamin Grobler (“Grobler”) filed a patent infringement action against Sony Computer Entertainment America LLC (“Sony”) alleging direct and indirect (both inducing and contributory) infringement. Grobler subsequently filed an amended complaint that removed the contributory infringement claim and asserted a claim for indirect infringement limited to inducing infringement. Sonly filed a motion dismiss the inducing claim.

As explained by the district court, “Grobler filed this suit against Sony, alleging that Sony infringes the ‘084 Patent by making, using, importing, offering to sell, and/or selling in the United States, systems for data vending, including the Sony PlayStation Network system. Id. at ¶ 9. Grobler also alleged that Sony infringed one or more claims of the ‘084 Patent by contributing to and/or inducing its customers’ infringement using such systems. Id. Grobler then filed the AC, limiting the indirect infringement claim to a claim that Sony indirectly infringes one or more claims of the ‘084 Patent by inducing its customers’ infringement using the Sony PlayStation Network system. AC at ¶ 10. Sony now moves to dismiss the induced infringement claims for failure to meet the pleading requirements for indirect patent infringement.”
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In a set of mixed rulings for the parties, the district court denied the parties’ motions for new trial, found Samsung did not willfully infringe Apple’s patents, invalidated certain claims of one of Samsung’s patents, denied Samsung’s motion for indefiniteness of certain of Apple’s patents and denied Apple’s motion for enhanced damages.

Samsung moved for a new trial asserting that the trial was manifestly unfair. Samsung asserted that: “1) the trial time limitation prejudiced Samsung; (2) allowing Apple
to point out to the jury which Samsung witness were not called prejudiced Samsung; (3) Samsung’s witnesses were barred from making some arguments, where Apple’s witnesses were allowed to make other arguments; (4) Samsung was required to lay foundation for documents while Apple was not; (5) Samsung was forbidden to play advertisements while Apple was not; and (6) Samsung could not use depositions to cross-examine Apple’s witnesses while Apple was allowed to used deposition testimony during cross examination.”
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