Articles Posted in District Courts

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In this patent infringement action, the defendants asked the district court to compel the plaintiffs to provide constructions for disputed claim terms identified by the parties under the Local Patent Rules. Defendants identified 8 claim terms that they contended require construction. For each term that the defendants identified, the plaintiffs offered “plain meaning” as their proposed construction and would not acknowledge whether defendants’ proposed construction of these terms is within the “plain meaning” asserted by plaintiffs.

As a result, defendants contended that plaintiffs’ assertion of “plain meaning” as their proposed construction of all disputed terms prejudices defendants and “prevents the Court from engaging in meaningful claim construction.” The plaintiffs responded by arguing that “plain and ordinary meaning” is a valid construction.
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In this patent infringement action, the Defendants filed motions for partial summary judgment of invalidity with respect to two of the patents at issue in the case. The defendants argued that two district courts had already found the two patents at issue in the case patent ineligible under section 101 of the Patent Act.
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Omega Patents, LLC (“Omega”) filed a patent infringement action against CalAmp Corp. (“CalAmp”) asserting that CalAmp infringes the claims of U.S. Patent No. 6,346,876 (“the ‘876 Patent”), U.S. Patent No. 6,737,989 (“the ‘989 Patent”), U.S. Patent No. 6,756,885 (“the ‘885 Patent”), U.S. Patent No. 7,671,727 (“the ‘727 Patent”), and U.S. Patent No. 8,032,278 (“the ‘278 Patent”). The patents relate to control systems for vehicles with a “data communications bus.” Omega asserted that CalAmp’s devices are used to monitor particular vehicle characteristics and conditions and report vehicle information to an end user, thus infringing on the patents-in-suit. In particular, CalAmp advertises for sale the LMU-3000, LMU-3030, and LMU-3050 (the “Accused Devices”) which are described as full-featured tracking systems which “access vehicle diagnostic interface data, track vehicle speed and location, plus detect hard braking, cornering, or acceleration.”
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After the PTAB granted Defendant’s petition for IPR on certain of the claims in the patent-in-suit, the defendant filed a motion to stay the action pending the resolution of the IPR. The plaintiffs objected to a stay, but alternatively advocated for a partial stay allowing them to move forward with their causes of action related to Claims 12, 18, 20-22, and 25, which were not being reviewed by the PTAB.

The district court began its analysis by noting that before the court could rule on the motion to say, the claim construction deadlines approached and passed and neither party asked the district court to extend the claim construction deadlines due to the pending motion for a stay. Instead, both parties filed their opening and responsive claim construction briefs.
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The defendants filed a motion for leave to have the forensic expert report of Curtis Rose considered as affirmative evidence. The defendants timely served Rose’s expert rebuttal report but sought to use his opinions as affirmative evidence, despite missing the deadline for doing so. According to defendants’ motion, the Rose rebuttal report analyzes “the metadata embedded within files provided to Garmin by Mark W. Atherton, which discuss using a downwardly-directed scanning sonar beam to image underwater features.” Defendants argued that, with such short notice, they could not meet the deadline but that they were able to produce to plaintiffs the files in their possession.
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Moblize contended that TDE Petroleum Data Solutions, Inc (“TDE”) either knew or should have known that its motion for preliminary injunction was meritless and that it was brought for the improper purpose of harassing Moblize. In its motion, Moblize asserted that “TDE’s actions were plainly designed to increase the cost of litigation for Moblize, arguing that (1) TDE purposefully brought the case in an inconvenient forum, the Eastern District of Texas; (2) TDE issued a press release along with service of process in a calculated effort to harm Moblize and induce Moblize to settle; (3) TDE improperly relied on biased expert witnesses; and (4) TDE brought irrelevant third-party discovery to harass Moblize.”
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Defendant’s filed a motion to dismiss pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(1) motion, contending that Plaintiffs lacked standing because no case or controversy existed at the time Plaintiffs filed the complaint. Defendant argued that the Plaintiffs had suffered an “injury in fact.” The “injury in fact” element of standing requires “an invasion of a legally protected interest that is (a) concrete and particularized, and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.” Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992) (citations and quotation marks omitted).

Defendant contended that the complaint fails to establish an “injury in fact” because it accused only one of Defendant’s products of infringement (the “MoMe® Kardia System”) and that product is incapable of infringement because it is still under development and not yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”).
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Canvs filed a patent infringement action in 2014 asserting that Nivisys induced and contributed to the infringement of its patent through the sale of TACS and TACS-M products. After a lengthy stay, the district court held a Markman hearing and before the district court took any action related to the Markman hearing, Nivisys filed a Motion for Summary Judgment. After that, the district court entered its Claim Construction Order.

After the claim construction order, the partied asked the district court to enter judgment in favor of Nivisys on all claims asserted in the action and to vacate its Claim Construction Order “[t]o avoid collateral estoppel against Canvs.”
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Cobra International, Inc. (“Cobra”) filed a patent infringement action against Defendants for infringement of U.S. Patent No. 5,821,858 (“the ‘858 patent”). Cobra alleged that the ‘858 patent was issued to Allan J. Stone, who became “the owner” of the patent, and that Stone assigned the patent to Cobra.

The district court had previously granted Defendants’ Renewed Motion for Summary Judgment of Patent Invalidity for Lack of Inventorship on the ground that Stone was not the sole inventor of the ‘858 patent, but the district court also held that Cobra “must be allowed to correct inventorship pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 256 in order to avoid a finding of patent invalidity.” Defendants subsequently moved to dismiss the on the ground that Cobra does not have complete ownership of the ‘858 patent and failed to join its co-owners as plaintiffs.
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Plaintiff SATA GmbH & Co. KG (“Plaintiff”) sought an ex parte Motion for Temporary Restraining Order and a Motion for Preliminary Injunction. Plaintiff alleged that Defendants Zhejiang Refine Wufu Air Tools Co., Ltd. (“Wufu”) and Prona Tools, Inc. (“Prona”) (collectively, “Defendants”) committed trademark counterfeiting, trademark infringement, and design patent infringement through Defendants’ use of Plaintiff’s trademarks and design patents on Defendants’ products.

The district court explained that “[i]n order to succeed on its motion, ‘[a] plaintiff seeking a preliminary injunction must establish that he is likely to succeed on the merits, that he is likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief, that the balance of equities tips in his favor, and that an injunction is in the public interest.’ Winter v. Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 20 (2008). Injunctive relief is ‘an extraordinary remedy that may only be awarded upon a clear showing that the plaintiff is entitled to such relief.’ Id. at 22.”
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