Articles Posted in D. Delaware

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In UbiComm LLC v. Zappos IP Inc., No. 1-13-cv-01029 (D. Del. Nov. 13, 2013), the court dismissed the asserted patent claims as being directed at an abstract idea that was patent ineligible. Plaintiff UbiComm LLC (“UbiComm”) alleged that Zappos IP Inc.’s (“Zappos”) websites infringed method claims of United States Patent No. 5,603,054 (“‘054 patent”). Zappos moved to dismiss the asserted claims as ineligible subject matter.

The patent describes the invention as “a method for superimposing prespecified locational, environmental, and contextual controls on user interactions, including interactions of mobile users, with computational resources of a distributed computer system and with equipment residing on processes running on said system.” Claim 1 of the ‘054 patent, the only independent claim, reads:
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Robocast filed patent infringement actions against Apple and Microsoft. As expert reports were underway, Apple and Microsoft moved to compel undisclosed surveys that were commissioned by one of Robocast’s experts. As the Magistrate Judge explained, “Specifically, I am asked to resolve the parties’ dispute concerning certain undisclosed surveys commissioned by Professor James T. Berger in anticipation of his issuing expert reports vis-a-vis each defendant. Those two reports, in turn, are the foundation upon which another plaintiff’s expert directly relies for the purpose of establishing the scope of damages against the defendants. Robocast’s survey expert actually had preliminary surveys conducted for each of the two defendants, Apple and Microsoft, prior to the surveys which form the basis for his expert reports’ conclusions.”

Robocast resisted to reveling the prior surveys was predicated on the argument that Professor Berger claimed he did not rely upon any of the prior surveys in connection with reaching the conclusions reflected in his final reports concerning each defendant. “Indeed, because the expert deleted the earlier surveys (which had been performed after his retention by the plaintiff) from his computer, he was physically unable to take them into consideration at the time he reviewed and adopted the later-commissioned surveys into his final reports.”
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In this patent infringement action, a number of the defendants moved to stay the case pending an Inter Partes Review (“IPR”) of the patent-in-suit. The district court had previously denied a motion to stay pending a previous reexamination proceeding before the patent office.

In October 2012, shortly after the America Invents Act’s IPR process became available, Kyocera filed an IPR against all asserted claims of the patents-in-suit. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) found that Kyocera demonstrated “a reasonable likelihood of prevailing in its challenge” to the asserted claims. Kyocera then moved to stay pending the IPR process and the other defendants filed a motion to stay pending the IPR process as well.
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Parallel Networks had several lawsuits pending against different defendants in different district courts. The pending litigations consisted of nine actions, pending in the Eastern District of Texas and the District of Delaware. Four defendants sought centralization of the litigation in the Eastern District of Texas. Three of the District of Delaware defendants supported the centralization in its entirety and seven of the Eastern District of Texas defendants did so as well. The patent holder, Parallel Networks, opposed centralization and alternatively suggested selection of the Northern District of Texas as the transferee forum.

As the Panel explained, Parallel opposes centralization primarily because there3 are effectively only two actions involved in this litigation (the Eastern District of Texas actions have been consolidated in a single action) and, given the disparity in the progress of the actions, voluntary cooperative efforts among counsel are preferable to formal centralization. We respectfully disagree. Though the number of actins and districts involved in this litigation is indeed low, the litigation involves over 30 defendants. The Eastern District of Texas actions have progressed somewhat further than the Delaware action, but additional pretrial rulings (including claims construction rulings on the disputed terms) will be necessary to resolve Parallel’s claims against the over 20 defendants for whom summary judgment was denied. While we applaud and encourage any cooperative efforts undertaken by parties to this litigation, centralization under Section 1407 allows us to assign these actions to a single judge, who has already gained familiarity with the parties and the patent, who can ensure that pretrial proceedings are conducted in a streamlined manner leading to the just and expeditious resolution of all actions to the overall benefit of all parties and the courts. See In re Brimonidine Patent Litig. 507 F. Supp.2d 1381, 1382 (J.P.M.L. 2007)
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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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Microsoft and Google sued Geotag in the District of Delaware for a declaration that their customers did not infringe a Geotag patent, “Internet Organizer for Accessing Geographically and Topically Based Information,” and that the patent was invalid. Geotag had sued in excess of 450 companies in the Eastern District of Texas and many of these companies were customers of Microsoft and Google, who provide mapping services that allow interested persons to use the Internet to search for a convenient location of a business.

Geotag moved to transfer the declaratory judgment action pending in Delaware to the Eastern District of Texas. The district court in Delaware analyzed the private and public interest factors pursuant to Section 1404(a) and concluded that transfer was not appropriate.
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The United States District Court for the District of Delaware recently ruled on the issue of whether a bounced check for the issuance of a patent could constitute abandonment of the patent. In this patent infringement action, defendants moved to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction as a result of the bounced check. The district court denied the motion.

It was undisputed that during the prosecution of the patent, that the applicants original check to cover the issue fee bounced, which led to the patent office notifying the applicants of the payment deficiency and seeking withdrawal of the patent from issuance. As a result, defendants contended that the patent was abandoned under 35 U.S.C. § 151 for failure to timely pay the required issue fee. Plaintiff’s contended that the bounced check was properly resolved with the USPTO and that the Patent Office never officially withdrew the patent from issuance. Plaintiffs also noted that the Patent Office accepted payment of all required maintenance fees for several years.
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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.
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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.
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Plaintiff brought suit in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware against defendants asserting declaratory judgment, antitrust, Lanham Act and state tort claims based on two patents co-owned by the defendants. The defendants moved to transfer the case to the United States District Court for the Central District of California, primarily because a related case involving the same patents was in the Central District. The District Court granted the motion to transfer.

In opposing the motion to transfer, the plaintiff argued that the case could not be transferred to the Central District of California because the Central District did not have personal jurisdiction over the plaintiff. In rejecting this contention, the district court noted that Section 1404(a) requires that “the party moving for transfer bear the burden of proving that the action properly could have been brought in the transferee court in the first instance.”
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