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Apple moved for summary judgment with respect to Claim 5 of Motorola’s U.S. Patent No. 6,175,559 (the ‘559 patent). Claim 5 of the ‘559 patent provides for a A method of generating preamble sequences in a CDMA system, the method comprising” steps of forming an outer code, forming an inner code and multiplying the outer code by the inner code to generate a preamble sequence.

A couple of weeks earlier, the district court interpreted the claim language to mean that the third step of multiplying the chips of the inner code by the chips of the outer code only occurs after the inner code and outer code are completed. Apple argued on summary judgment that its devices do not completely form the alleged inner and outer codes before those codes are combined to generate the preamble sequence.
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Complainant, Samsung, filed a motion to strike certain paragraphs of Apple’s expert’s, Dr. James Davis, report regarding non-infringement and lack of a domestic industry. Samsung asserted that the Davis Report contained arguments that Apple failed to disclose in response to interrogatories and, as a result, Samsung was prejudiced because the untimely arguments prevented Samsung’s infringement and domestic industry expert from addressing them. Samsung explained that after late discovery from a non-party, Qualcomm, Apple should have supplemented its contentions and instead waited until the rebuttal report to assert for the first time that Samsung had not shown sufficient evidence to establish the domestic industry requirement.

Apple responded by arguing that Dr. Davis’s opinion was not new because Apple’s interrogatory responses expressly identified that Samsung failed to put forth evidence that the domestic industry products input the specific information needed for the patent-in-suit. Apple also asserted that Samsung was engaging in discovery gamesmanship in that the Qualcomm deposition occurred after Samsung’s initial report was submitted and that the Administrative Law Judge had approve the late deposition.
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In the running battle between Apple and Samsung that is playing out in courts and agencies around the world, Apple filed a motion seeking sanctions against Samsung for the alleged spoliation of evidence. Apple alleged that Samsung should be sanctioned for spoliation because Samsung deliberately failed to take institutional steps to retain or back up emails sent or received using its computer email system. Apple also alleged that Samsung had no systematic or company-wide oversight procedures in place to ensure that its employees make appropriate decisions as to which emails are relevant and responsive or to ensure that relevant and responsive emails are in fact saved to employee hard drives.

Samsung denied Apple’s allegations and asserted that it began preserving documents when Apple filed its complaint and that Apple had not shown that Samsung or any of its employees destroyed relevant data after that date. Samsung also stated that even if Apple could establish that evidence was destroyed after the complaint was filed, Apple could not show that Samsung acted in bad faith or with any intent to impair Apple in its case. Samsung also noted that the majority of the accused products were released after the complaint was filed and therefore “[a]ny emails relating to Apple’s claims against these products (design, copying, etc.) would have to predate their release, meaning that any documents not kept would have been deleted pursuant to Samsung’s standard email retention policy. Hence, there is no basis for Apple’s claim that evidence of design and development, copying, or design around has been destroyed.”
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The district court began its opinion with a simple direction to the parties: “Stop the shenanigans at depositions. Period.” The district court went on to explain that “[t]his Court has no patience for behavior like that exhibited at the deposition . . . It is unnecessary and unacceptable.”

Showing that videotape evidence may be the best evidence of what occurs at a deposition, the district court also wanted to know if there was a videotape in existence: “Is there a videotape of the Batten deposition? If so, please provide it to the Court immediately on a CD-ROM/DVD.”
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In this patent infringement action, plaintiff Hoyt Fleming (“Fleming”) moved to strike certain paragraphs of the report of Escort’s expert on its defense of non-infringement. One of Escort’s defenses to the charge of infringement was that Escort’s devices lock out false signals by using a process different from that described in Fleming’s patents. Escort asserted that false signals are locked out of Fleming’s invention when the device reaches a predetermined distance from the predetermined position of a false signal, but with Escort’s devices, the distance from a lockout varies.

Accordingly, as the district court explained, “Escort’s expert, Dr. Grindon, concluded, among other things, that ‘the asserted claims of the ‘038 patent are not infringed’ by Escort’s devices. Id. at pp. 1-8. In his claim-by-claim analysis set forth in that Supplemental Report — at paragraphs 21 through 42 — he concludes that Escort’s products do not infringe claims 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 23, 25, 26, and 27 of the ‘038 patent because those claims describe a device that locks out an alert if the device is a predetermined distance from a predetermined false signal, while with the Escort products, ‘the distance from a lockout varies.’ Id.”
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In this dispute over the inventorship of a patent that is integral to BlackBerry products, the district court held a bench trial on the applicability of laches. The issue at the bench trial turned on whether RIM suffered economic prejudice as a result of plaintiff’s delay in bringing the lawsuit.

The complaint to correct the inventorship of the patent-in-suit was filed on August 1, 2011. After a summary judgment motion disposed of the state law claims, the district court found that RIM had established a presumption of laches on the correction-of-inventorship claim but the plaintiff had rebutted the presumption by showing a lack of evidentiary or economic prejudice that resulted from the unreasonable delay in bringing the lawsuit. The district court then ordered a bench trial to resolve the disputed issues of fact as laches is an equitable defense that is heard by the court and not a jury. After the bench trial, the district court made various findings of fact.
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Complainant OSRAM AG (“OSRAM”) moved for a summary determination that it had satisfied the economic prong of the domestic industry requirement. Respondent LG Electronics, Inc. and other LG entities (collectively, LG) opposed the motion.

OSRAM moved for summary determination on the ground that it has devoted substantial resources in the United States, including engineering and research of products that incorporate LEDs. As stated by the Administrative Law Judge, “OSRAM contends that it satisfies the economic prong of the domestic industry requirement as set forth in 19 U.S.C. ยง 1337(a)(3)(C) for U.S. Patent Nos. 7,151,283 (“the ‘283 patent”) and 7,271,425 (“the ‘425 patent”). OSRAM states that it has devoted substantial resources in the United States, including investments in domestic engineering and research and development (“R&D”) of products incorporating LEDs, at its two domestic subsidiaries, OSRAM Opto Semiconductors, Inc. and OSRAM Sylvania Inc. Mem. at 1. OSRAM further states that these investments relate to work on OSRAM LEDs with chip level conversion technology (“OSRAM LEDs with CLC”), which OSRAM asserts are covered by claims of the ‘283 patent, and OSRAM’s Advanced Power TOPLEDs (“OSRAM APT LEDs”), which OSRAM asserts are covered by claims of the ‘425 patent Id OSRAM summarizes its investments in domestic engineering and R&D from October 2009 through September 2011.”
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Defendant TIBCO Software Inc. (“TIBCO”) moved to dismiss plaintiff’s claims for inducing infringement and willful infringement. Plaintiff’s complaint alleged that “TIBCO is ‘inducing its customers to directly infringe the ‘864 Patent by providing its customers and others with detailed explanations, instructions, and information as to arrangements, applications, and use of its TIBCO Spotfire Platform products that promote and demonstrate how to use those products in an infringing manner. VSi avers it “demonstrated its patented software MIDaS to Spotfire in 2005 and notified Spotfire MIDaS was covered by U.S. Patent No. 6,877,006 (‘the ‘006 Patent’).'”

The complaint also alleged that “[i]n ‘early 2006,’ according to the FAC, VSi made a ‘similar presentation’ of its MIDaS software to TIBCO. Id. During that presentation, VSi allegedly notified TIBCO that MIDaS was covered by the ‘006 patent and another pending continuation patent application that later issued as that ‘864 patent. Id. Finally, VSi pleads that TIBCO had actual knowledge of the ‘864 patent at least by December 23, 2011, the date this suit was filed.”
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Plaintiff retained an expert to opine on damages arising from the defendants’ alleged infringement of the asserted patents. The defendants moved to exclude the expert report on two grounds: (1) the expert failed to properly apportion the value of the patented features; and (2) the expert misapplied the market value rule. The expert had attributed 30% of the value of the accused products to the asserted bus interface department.

The district court began its analysis by stating the applicable law: “An expert witness may provide opinion testimony if ‘(a) the expert’s scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will help the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issues; (b) the testimony is based on sufficient fact or data; (c) the testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods; and (d) the expert has reliably applied the principles and methods to the facts of the case.” Fed. R. Evid. 702. A trial court is “charged with a ‘gatekeeping role,’ the objective of which is to ensure that expert testimony admitted into evidence is both reliable and relevant.’ Sundance, Inc. v. DeMonte Fabricating Ltd., 550 f.3D 1356, 1360 (Fed. Cir. 2008).”
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In this dispute over inventorship of a patent, Affymetrix (“Affymetrix”) and Gregory Kirk (“Mr. Kirk”) sought to correct U.S. Patent Nos. 7,510,481 and 7,612,020 to add Mr. Kirk as one of the inventors on the patents. The patents are directed to a method and an apparatus for conducting genetic testing using microarrays and are assigned to the defendant, Illumina, Inc. (“Illumina”). The plaintiffs contended that Mr. Kirk is a joint inventor because of certain information he disclosed in an email to one of the named inventors several months before the first patent application was filed.

The plaintiffs filed a motion in limine to preclude Illumina’s expert from testifying at trial on the ground that his opinions were neither relevant nor helpful. In its motion, the plaintiffs divided Illumina’s expert report into three parts: (1) an opinion that Mr. Kirk did not contribute a “complete and operative invention”; (2) an opinion on Mr. Kirk’s contribution to “decoding”; and (3) an opinion on the “organization and structure” of Mr. Kirk’s emails.
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