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Interwoven moved to stay all proceedings pending the outcome of an ex parte reexamination of the two patents-in-suit. Interwoven asserted that a stay was warranted because the defendant appeared unprepared to litigate and a reexamination would likely modify the issues in the case, with no undue burden to the defendant. The defendant, Vertical, opposed the motion, arguing that a stay would impose an unreasonable delay and that the stay request was a dilatory tactic that would prejudice the defendant, as the alleged infringement would continue while the stay was in effect.

Vertical had filed a patent infringement action against Microsoft Corporation in the Eastern District of Texas. After it settled with Microsoft, Vertical told Interwoven that it believed Interwoven was infringing its patents. After negotiations failed, Interwoven filed the declaratory judgment action in the Northern District of California. During the litigation, the parties began discovery, briefed claim construction issues and participated in the Markman hearing. The district court then issued its claim construction ruling, which largely rejected Interwoven’s positions. Interwoven then filed its ex parte request for reexamination and moved to stay the litigation that it had initiated.
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Plaintiff NetAirus Technologies (“NetAirus”) contended that Apple was infringing U.S. Patent No, 7,103,380 (the “‘380 Patent”), which pertains to a method in which a handset device communicates wirelessly over both local area networks and wide area networks. NetAirus claimed that the iPhone 3G and later models infringed the ‘380 Patent by switching between a cellular data network and local Wi-Fi hotspots. Apple moved for summary judgment contending that the ‘380 Patent was invalid.
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Plaintiff Schering Corp. (“Schering”) filed a patent infringement action against Apotex Inc. (“Apotex”). Schering brought a motion contending that Apotex spoliated relevant evidence. The motion was based on the omission of allegedly relevant evidence from Apotex’ expert report. The expert report was served in October 2011 and Schering notified Apotex of the alleged spoliation a few days after the report was served. Apotex responded to the letter and stated that it had no other additional information to provide because the expert did not save the slides that he analyzed.

Schering did not bring the alleged spoliation to the court’s attention for several months. The court found that this delay was significant and that Schering had not adequately explained the delay. “Schering fails to adequately explain why it waited for months, and until the eve of trial, to bring this alleged spoliation to the attention of the Court.”
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In two separate actions, Robocast sued Apple and Microsoft for patent infringement. Apple responded by filing a motion to transfer and Microsoft subsequently filed a similar motion to transfer. Both complaints are centered on U.S. Patent No. 7,155,451 (the “‘451 Patent”), which is directed toward an “Automated Browsing System for Publishers and Users on Networks Serving Internet and Remote Devices,” which was invented by the president of Robocast. Robocast accused AppleTV, Front Row, iTunes, Bing and Windows Vista of infringing the patent.
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In this patent infringement action, the defendant, Varian Medical Systems, provided an expert report on damages that did not state a royalty rate for the accused products. The district court termed this a tactical decision. “By the way of background, Defendant Varian made the tactical decision to have its expert not state any royalty rate for the sales …”

Varian subsequently filed objections to the district court’s final jury instructions with respect to damages and sought to clarify the jury instructions so that it could argue to the jury reasonable royalties may consist of the sale of one component but there should be no royalty on the sale revenue of the combination of various components. “Alternatively, Varian seeks to argue to the jury that ‘if the jury is to award any royalty on the revenue from the Clinac or Trilogy that royalty should be small given, that Varian contributed to the combination.'”
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Plaintiff, Ferring B.V., filed a patent infringement action against Watson Laboratory, Inc. (“Watson Labs”) for tranexamic acid tablets sold under the trademark Lysteda. Watson Labs applied to the FDA for permission to manufacture and sell generic tranexamic acid tablets. Watson Labs filed a counterclaim and answer, including an assertion that the patent-in-suit was invalid. Ferring moved to dismiss the counterclaims for invalidity and to strike invalidity as an affirmative defense.

The district court began its analysis by noting that “[a]s a matter of both fairness and efficiency, it seems improper to permit a defendant to force a plaintiff to choose between ambush at trial and needless preparation for a myriad of potential affirmative defenses consistent with a single broad affirmative defense in the answer. The purpose behind the contemporary reading of Rule 8(a) is to prevent a plaintiff from extorting a settlement from a defendant through the prospect of an expensive, detracted discovery process predicated on threadbare claims that would be seen to be legally insufficient if the circumstances of the alleged wrongdoing were even read, much less put to proof.”
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K Tech Telecommunications (“K Tech”) filed patent infringement actions against Time Warner and DirecTV. DirecTV and Time Warner moved to dismiss the patent infringement complaint for failure to state a claim or, in the alternative, for a more definite statement. K Tech owns several patents that are directed toward particular ways of updating certain channel information associated with certain digital television signals.

As explained by the district court, “[a]ccording to Plaintiff, full-power television stations identify individual television programs carried by a digital television signal transmitted over the air using a major channel number, a minor channel number, and/or a carrier frequency. Plaintiff’s patents explain that when a television translator facility receives a broadcast, translates it to a new frequency, and rebroadcast it, so-called Program and System Information (“PSIP”) data associated with the transmission, including channel number and carrier frequency, might not be updated. Plaintiff’s patented inventions enable a television translator facility to update the PSIP table with proper channel and carrier frequency information.”
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The parties, ICOS Vision Systems and Scanner Technologies, have been involved in patent litigation against one another for over ten years. The patents at issue concern technology used to inspect electronic packaging and one of the patents involved the use of ball grid arrays that provide a method of securing the electrical connections between the microchip and circuit board. Scanner owns a patent pertaining to a method of calibrating and inspecting ball grid arrays. With respect to this patent, the district court bifurcated liability and damages and permitted ICOS to file a single summary judgment motion as to whether ICOS had an implied license through legal estoppel and whether the patent was unenforceable due to laches.

With respect to the implied license issue, the district court discussed the prior litigation between the parties in which Scanner had sued ICOS for patent infringement based on eight patents. After extensive litigation, including a trip to the Federal Circuit, the parties engaged in settlement negotiations that ultimately led to Scanner providing a covenant not to sue on these eight patents. The covenant not to sue provided that Scanner would not sue ICOS for infringement based on the methods or products previously or currently made, used or offered for sale in the United States or imported into the United States. Scanner subsequently attempt to revoke the covenant not to sue when ICOS proceeded with its declaratory judgment claim and the district court found that the covenant not to sue did not deprive it of subject matter jurisdiction to hear the declaratory judgment claim.
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Plaintiff Brandeis University (“Brandeis”) alleged that it was the owner of the patents-in-suit and plaintiff GFA Brands, Inc. (“GFA”) alleged that it was the exclusive licensee of the patents-in-suit. Plaintiffs asserted that the defendants infringed the patents by making, using, selling or importing various products such as cookies, cookie dough and spreads. A number of the defendants moved to transfer or sever.

With respect to the motions to sever, some of the defendants asserted that the joinder violated Fed.R.Civ.P. 20. Although most of the parties agreed that there were common questions of fact and law, the question remained whether plaintiffs’ claims against the different defendants arose out of the same transaction, occurrence or series of transactions or occurrences.
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SanDisk Corporation (“SanDisk”) brought a declaratory relief action seeking a declaration that its products do not infringe certain patents held by Round Rock Research and that the patents were invalid. Round Rock moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, contending that its conduct in sending letters to SanDisk in California demanding licensing negotiations were insufficient for the assertion of personal jurisdiction.

According to the district court, Round Rock is a technology research and licensing company that holds thousands of patents and pending patent applications. Round Rock does not manufacture or market products utilizing its patented inventions but instead seeks licensing agreements from parties who do make and sell such products, or pursues litigation against them when it deems it necessary to do so.
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