Articles Posted in D. Delaware

Published on:

by

In this patent infringement action, Plaintiff intended to use a damage expert to support a “lost profits” measure of damages and/or a “reasonable royalty” measure of damages. Defendant moved to exclude the lost profits analysis because the damage expert ignored the testimony of Plaintiff’s corporate designee that contradicted his ultimate conclusion.

In the motion to exclude, as explained by the district court, Defendant argued that the damage expert “ignores” testimony from Plaintiff’s corporate designee (Patrick Cox) that purportedly contradicts his ultimate conclusion that, but for Defendant’s infringement, Plaintiff would have realized the sales that Defendant obtained; and (b) Mr. Holzen “lacks information sufficient to reliably determine [Plaintiff]’s profit per call, because that information is based on negotiated customer agreements, which vary by customer.”

Continue reading

Published on:

by

Acceleration Bay LLC (“Acceleration”) filed a patent infringement suit against Activision Blizzard Inc. (“Activision”) alleging that versions of its popular video games, World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, and Destiny infringed certain of its patents. The trial in the action was postponed when it was not clear as to whether Acceleration had a viable, admissible damage theory.

After the district court permitted the plaintiff to submit a new damage report, the plaintiff submitted a new report from a new damage expert. Activision moved to exclude the new damage report on several grounds and Acceleration also moved to exclude Activision’s damage expert as well. In addition to excluding Acceleration’s damage expert report in several respects, the district court also excluded certain aspects of Activision’s damage expert.

With respect to Activision’s expert, the district court noted that “Ms. Lawton’s assumption of non-infringement of earlier versions of the accused products is baseless and must be excluded.” Activision argued that Ms. Lawton did not opine on non-infringing alternatives but instead assumed non-infringement based on Acceleration not pursuing infringement claims prior to 2012. The district court found this explanation unavailing.

Continue reading
Published on:

by

In this patent infringement action, the plaintiff sought production of the defendant’s document retention and document destruction policies. The defendant asserted that the request sought information protected by work product and attorney-client privilege. The plaintiff argued that the documents were merely corporate policies that could not be privileged.

The district court analyzed the issue by reviewing the court’s Default Discovery Standards and concluded that these policies are protected under those standards.
Continue reading

Published on:

by

MAX Encryption Technologies (“MAZ”) filed a patent infringement action against Blackberry for patent entitled “Method of Transparent Encryption and Decryption for an Electronic Document Management System,” U.S. Patent No. 6,185,681 (the “‘681 patent”). As the case progressed toward trial, Blackberry filed a motion to exclude the testimony of MAZ’ damages expert, Chase Perry.

As explained by the district court, “[i]n reaching his baseline estimate for damages, Mr. Perry relied on a previous license agreement involving the patent-in-suit. The previous license agreement, however, was made in the context of settling a litigation dispute, and thus did not reflect the royalty the parties would have reached ‘just before infringement began.’ Therefore, the damages amount arrived at in the settlement agreement had to be translated into a damages number that the same parties would have arrived at just before infringement began had they, instead, assumed that the patent was infringed and valid. This implies that the amount of the previous settlement would need to be increased to arrive at the royalties that would have been agreed to in a hypothetical negotiation.’
Continue reading

Published on:

by

Plaintiff Sprint Communications Company brought suit against Defendants Comcast Cable Communications, LLC and Comcast IP Phone, LLC alleging infringement of six of its patents related to telecommunications and data networking. After the district court denied summary judgment, Sprint prevailed in a jury trial on some of the patents and Sprint was award $27.6 million in damages. Subsequently, the district court granted Comcast’s motion for judgment as a matter of law and Sprint appealed.

Comcast requested attorney’s fees under 35 U.S.C. § 285. Sprint argued that the district court should defer ruling on the motion until the appeal was determined and asserted that the Federal Circuit’s decision may moot the motion, or may clarify some issues relating to it. Comcast opposed Sprint’s request and encouraged a “swift resolution” with the idea that the Federal Circuit may be able to decide both issues at once.
Continue reading

Published on:

by

Google, Inc. and YouTube, LLC (collectively “Google”) filed a motion for leave to amend their answer to include an implied license affirmative defense. Because Google filed the motion to amend its answer more than two months after the district court’s scheduling order’s deadline to amend the pleadings, Google had to show good cause for the district court to grant its motion.

The district court noted that Google did not file its present motion to amend until December 22, 2015, near the end of the fact discovery deadline of February 26, 2016. The district court also noted that “[t]he basis of Google’s implied license defense is VideoShare’s June 21, 2013 covenant not to sue for infringement of U.S. Patent No. 7,987,492. Nonetheless, Google failed to include the implied license defense in its pleadings for a year and a half after VideoShare entered the covenant not to sue. Google has made no attempt to explain its delay in presenting this defense. Google does not contend that it lacked sufficient information to meet the amendment deadline, or that it discovered new information that could not be timely pled. Therefore, Google has not demonstrated why its amended defense could not have been sought in a timely manner.”
Continue reading

Published on:

by

Plaintiffs asserted that defendants infringed several patents. The district court bifurcated liability and damages for all four patent infringement claims. After a jury trial, the jury concluded that the patents were valid and infringed. Subsequently, after an inter partes review proceeding, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) issued a Final Written Decision that found all asserted claims of one of the patents-in-suit unpatentable.

The district court denied the defendants’ post-trial motions with respect to most of the patents, but withheld any decision on any issues pertaining to the ‘244 patent, which was the subject of the PTAB proceeding and a pending appeal from the PTAB decision. The defendants then filed a motion for certification of partial final judgment on the patent infringement claims pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(b).
Continue reading

Published on:

by

When this patent infringement action began, the plaintiff explained that it was concerned that it would not be able to obtain important discovery if Ricoh Company Ltd. (“RCL”), which is the parent company of the defendants, Ricoh Electronics, Inc. (“REI”) and Ricoh Americas Corp. (“RAC”) were dismissed as a party. When they moved for dismissal, the defendants represented that: “IV identifies no information exclusively within the possession of RCL that is germane to its infringement case. On the other hand, it would be unreasonable and a hardship on RCL to force it to participate in litigation halfway around the world, particularly when RAC and REI are able and willing to contest IV’s claims.”

As explained by the district court, after the dismissal of RCL, REI and RAC stated that the technical documents sought by IV were not in their possession or control, but might be obtained from RCL. RCL then refused to provide the documents voluntarily. Unable to obtain the discovery from REI and RAC, IV sought discovery from RCL through international Letters Rogatory. That request was denied by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Continue reading

Published on:

by

In this patent infringement action, a dispute arose between Plaintiff Blackbird Tech LLC (“Blackbird”) and the defendants over the terms of proposed protective orders to govern the use of confidential information produced. Although the parties agreed that a protective order was appropriate, they disagreed on the level of access by Blackbird’s in-house counsel and the scope of a patent prosecution bar.

The district court explained that the protective order presented a unique circumstance given Blackbird’s business, which was described as “a new model for individual inventors and small companies to monetize their intellectual property.” “Blackbird achieves this goal by acquiring patents and litigating on behalf of itself, using experienced patent litigators that are directly employed by Blackbird instead of outside counsel, at a great cost savings.” Blackbird also described the acquisition of patents as being “essential” to its business. An important part of Blackbird’s business model is to maintain “a diverse portfolio of patents and not to be concentrated in one technological area.”
Continue reading

Published on:

by

As this patent infringement action proceeded to trial, Google filed a motion in limine to exclude evidence of Google’s petitions for Inter Partes Review (“IPR”) of claims of the patent-in-suit and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (“PTAB”) denial of institution of those petitions. Google had previously filed petitions with the PTAB seeking to invalidate the patent-in-suit and the PTAB had declined to institute review of the petitions.
Continue reading