Published on:

by

After the Federal Circuit’s decision in Thereasense, Inc. v. Becton, Dickinson and Co., 2011 WL 2028255 (Fed. Cir. 2011), it appeared likely that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to proceed on an inequitable conduct claim. A recent decision from the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey may change that trend.

Schering Corp. (“Schering”) filed a complaint alleging that Mylan Pharmaceuticals’ (“Mylan”) Abbreviated New Drug Application (“ANDA”) infringed two of Schering’s patents that disclosed different ways to reduce cholesterol levels. Schering filed motions for partial summary judgment, one of which sought to eliminate Mylan’s defense of inequitable conduct in light of Thereasense. After granting Schering’s motion for summary judgment on the issue of infringement, the district court examined the motion addressing the inequitable conduct defense.
Continue reading

Published on:

by

Plaintiff, Jan Voda, M.D. (“Dr. Voda”), filed a patent infringement action against Medtronic Inc. (“Medtronic”) based on a patent that taught how to use a guide catheter to perform angioplasty of the left coronary artery. After Dr. Voda filed an amended complaint adding an additional patent, Medtronic moved to dismiss the new count based on the new patent pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) and attached documents that were not referred to in the complaint and that were not central to Dr. Voda’s claims. The district court issued an order notifying the parties that it would treat the motion as a motion for summary judgment under Fed.R.Civ.P. 56 and would consider the documents.

Medtronic’s motion argued that one of the counts of the amended complaint should be dismissed because the newly added patent was unenforceable in light of the Terminal Disclaimers. The Terminal Disclaimers stated that the ‘195 patent “shall be enforceable only for and during such period that it” is commonly owned with the ‘213 patent and another patent (the ‘625 patent),
Continue reading

Published on:

by

In a patent dispute over a method for detecting fetal Down syndrome, the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts invalidated the patent owner’s patent because it was anticipated and obvious. The patent at issue describes screening methods to determine Down syndrome in which physicians estimate the risk of Down syndrome using markers from both the first and second trimesters of a pregnancy. The patent teaches determining the risk for fetal Down syndrome by combining markers from both stages of pregnancy into a single assessment of risk.

According to the district court opinion, after the patent was filed tests that integrate first and second-trimester data into a single calculation of risk were considered to have a higher detection rate than any test that used the data from only one of the trimesters. The testing disclosed by the patent is widely adopted and is licensed to a number of entities with thousands of assessments conducted under theses licenses each year.
Continue reading

Published on:

by

Plaintiffs and defendant manufacture machines that automatically inspect integrated circuits made on semiconductor wafers. Plaintiffs sued defendant for patent infringement and a jury found that the patent was valid and infringed, but did not find that the infringement was willful.

After the jury verdict, the defendant notified its sales force of the verdict and emphasized that the process was not over and that no judgment had been entered. Plaintiffs notified the defendant that it would consider any sales that occurred after the jury verdict evidence of willful infringement. Several months later, the district court denied defendant’s post-trial motions and entered judgment for plaintiffs based on the jury verdict. The district court also entered a permanent injunction. Despite the permanent injunction, the defendant continued to sell the infringing product by meeting with potential customers in the United States who planned to use the machine in other parts of the world. The plaintiffs moved for contempt.
Continue reading

Published on:

by

In a recent case in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, the court denied defendants’ motion to transfer the case to the District of New Jersey. The court’s analysis focused primarily on whether the case could have originally been filed in the District of New Jersey. The court began its analysis by noting that 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a) provides that “[f]or convenience of the parties and witnesses, in the interest of justice, a district court may transfer any civil action to any other district or division where it might have been brought.”

Recognizing that the “first determination to be made under § 1404(a) is whether the claim could have been filed in the judicial district to which transfer is sought,” the court stated that the “‘critical time’ when making this threshold inquiry is the time when the lawsuit was filed.” Plaintiff contended that the matter could not have been filed in New Jersey initially because two of the defendants were not subject to personal jurisdiction in New Jersey. Defendants responded that the action could have been filed in New Jersey because the defendants consented to personal jurisdiction in New Jersey and were indemnified by another defendant, which was based in New Jersey.
Continue reading

Published on:

by

Plaintiff brought a patent infringement action alleging direct infringement of a single patent. The defendant, a corporation, sought an extension of time to respond to the complaint through a request from its CEO. Because corporations cannot represented themselves and must instead be represented by a licensed attorney, the district court denied the requested extension and ordered the defendant to answer within 30 days. A few months later, the CEO of the defendant filed an extension request in order to complete a re-examination of the plaintiff’s patent even though there was no re-examination request pending before the Patent and Trademark Office. The defendant still had not filed an answer to the complaint.

In response, the plaintiff requested that the district court enter a default judgment against the defendant and to set a hearing to determine the appropriate amount of damages to be awarded to the plaintiff and whether a permanent injunction should issue. More than a week later, the defendant, through an attorney, filed an answer to the complaint. Plaintiff moved to strike the answer because the defendant had failed to seek leave of court to files its late answer. The district court denied plaintiff’s motion and permitted the defendant to answer the complaint.
Continue reading

Published on:

by

In a patent infringement action, the district court granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment based on the on sale bar and dismissed plaintiff’s claims with prejudice. Defendants then requested that the district court find the case exceptional due plaintiff’s litigation misconduct. Based on that misconduct, the district court found that the case was exceptional. Defendants then moved for an award of $800,000 in attorneys’ fees.

The district court noted under 35 U.S.C. § 285, it may in exceptional cases award reasonable attorneys’ fees to the prevailing party. To do so, the court must first determine that there is clear and convincing evidence that the case is exceptional and then the court must exercise its discretion in determining whether an award of fees is justified. The district court also noted that “[l]itigation misconduct and unprofessional behavior may suffice, by themselves, to make a case exceptional under § 285” but “[i]n cases deemed exceptional only on the basis of litigation misconduct, however, the amount of the award must bear some relation to the extension of the misconduct.”
Continue reading

Published on:

by

Xerox Corporation (“Xerox”) filed a patent infringement action against Google and Yahoo! in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware. After construing certain terms of the patent-in-suit as part of a claim construction proceeding, the district court resolved a discovery dispute between the parties over the production of communications between Xerox and a third-party licensing company, IPValue. Google and Yahoo! sought production of documents that Xerox exchanged with IPValue and which Xerox had listed on its privilege log based on a common interest privilege.

Google and Yahoo! contended that the documents could not be protected by the common interest privilege because the relationship between Xerox and IPValue is purely commercial. Xerox disagreed contending that both it and IPValue retain attorneys to perform legal analyses on issues relating to patent rights and because Xerox and IP Value have a joint objective of successfully asserting the Xerox intellectual property rights, which requires close cooperation between the companies. IPValue is a patent licensing company that works with other companies to help monetize their patent portfolios. Prior to the litigation, Xerox and IPValue had entered into agreements designating IPValue as Xerox’s worldwide agent for intellectual property licensing.
Continue reading

Published on:

by

It is fast becoming clear that it is very difficult to transfer a patent infringement case out of the United States District Court for the District of Delaware when the defendant is incorporated in Delaware. In this case, Netgear sued Ruckus Wireless for patent infringement in the District of Delaware. Ruckus is a Delaware corporation with its principal of business in California. Netgear is also a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in California.

Ruckus moved to transfer the case to the Northern District of California based on the arguments that both it and Netgear have their headquarters and primary places of business in the Northern District, nearly all key events, parties, documents and third party witnesses are in the Northern District, there are already two patent infringement lawsuits involving related technologies pending between the parties in the Northern District and there is significant court congestion in Delaware.
Continue reading

Published on:

by

In a patent infringement action between Kimberly-Clark (“K-C”) and First Quality Baby Products (“First Quality”) pending in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, K-C filed a motion to compel First Quality to produce sales evaluation files relating to products accused of infringement. K-C asserted that the files were necessary because they might lead to admissible evidence regarding damage claims for a reasonable royalty and for lost profits due to price erosion. First Quality admitted in a deposition that the sales evaluation files contain information that is used in setting prices.

In analyzing whether the files should be produced, the district court began by stating that “[i]n calculating a reasonable royalty courts consider, among other things, the ‘infringer’s anticipated profit from the use of the patented invention.'” The district court found that First Quality’s sales evaluation files contain contribution margin analysis, which is a profitability measure used by First Quality to set prices. As a result, the district court noted that “it logically follows that First Quality’s sales evaluation files should be produced as they may aid in any calculation of reasonable royalties.”
Continue reading