Articles Posted in District Courts

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In Deep Sky Software, Inc. v. Southwest Airlines Co., Defendant Southwest Airlines (“Southwest”) sought its fees and costs following the successful inter partes review of the patent-in-suit, which resulted in all of the asserted claims being invalidated. Among the fees and costs Southwest sought were those related to the filing and prosecution of its IPR petition. Undaunted by the absence of other district court rulings awarding such fees, the district court nonetheless awarded Southwest nearly $400,000 in attorneys’ fees and costs, most of which was related to the IPR proceeding.
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Defendants, Nang Kuang Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (“Nang Kuang”) and CANDA NX-2, LLC (“CANDA”) (collectively, “Defendants”) filed a motion to dismiss, asserting that the patent infringement action filed by Plaintiffs, Eli Lilly and Company (“Lilly”) and the Trustees of Princeton University (collectively, “Plaintiffs”), should be dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction.

As explained by the district court, “Nang Kuang is a Taiwanese generic drug manufacturer seeking approval from the FDA to market generic versions of ALIMTA®. CANDA, a Texas limited liability company, entered into an agreement with Nang Kuang whereby Nang Kuang agreed to exclusively manufacture and supply the ANDA Product to CANDA, and CANDA agreed to assist Nang Kuang with the U.S. litigation arising from Nang Kuang’s submission of the ANDA, and find marketing partners to market, sell and distributed the ANDA Product if the ANDA application is approved by the FDA. As of this date, the FDA has not approved the ANDA, and neither Nang Kuang nor CANDA has commercially manufactured, used, sold or offered for sale in, or imported into, the United States any ANDA Product. On August 25, 2014, Nang Kuang and CANDA jointly provided a notice of certification to the required parties pursuant to 21 C.F.R. § 314.95(a) (‘Notice Letter’), including Lilly’s Indianapolis-based General Counsel and its Indianapolis trial counsel. The submission of the Notice Letter triggered the forty-five day period in which Lilly had to file the instant Hatch-Waxman action to challenge the ANDA and seek an order that the effective date of any approval of Nang Kuang’s ANDA be not earlier than the expiration date of Plaintiffs’ patents.”
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Defendant filed a motion to strike plaintiff’s expert report on infringement, asserting that the report failed to comply with Fed.R.Civ.P. 26 because, among other things, the report did not constitute a written report under Rule 26. Instead, the plaintiff had provided a declaration from its CEO, who was also the inventor of the patents-in-suit.
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After the Federal Circuit remanded the case to the district court, the defendant filed a motion to stay the case pending the United States Supreme Court’s review of the petition for writ of certiorari. As explained by the district court, “[t]his case for patent infringement is back in this court on remand from the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Promega Corp. v. Life Technologies Corp., 773 F.3d 1338 (Fed. Cir. 2014). The question before the court is whether the case should be stayed while defendants’ petition for a writ of certiorari is pending before the Supreme Court.”
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Lanard Toys Limited (“Lanard”) filed a patent infringement action against Toys “R” US. Lanard subsequently filed a four-count Amended Complaint and Demand for Trial by Jury, both of which were filed in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. After the amend complaint was filed, the case was transferred to the Middle District of Florida.
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After a jury returned a verdict against Apple, Apple filed a motion for judgment as a matter of law or a new trial. The district court subsequently notified the parties pursuant to Rule 59(d) that it was considering granting a motion for a new trial for a reason not stated in Apple’s original motion.

During the trial and apparently at Apple’s request, the district court instructed the jury on the entire market value rule. Smartflash had argued that it did not employ the entire market value rule at trial and instead employed an apportionment analysis.
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The district court had previously granted Defendant Respironics, Inc.’s
(“Respironics”) unopposed motion to stay the patent infringement action filed by the plaintiff, Zoll, pending an inter partes review (“IPR”) of the patent-in-suit, on which the Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO”) had instituted review. When Respironics filed the motion to stay, it had assured the district court that the length of the stay would not exceed 18 months. Based on this representation, Zoll withdrew its prior opposition to the requested stay and, based largely on the lack of opposition, the district court granted the stay.

After the completion of the IPR proceeding, the PTO confirmed the patentability of Zoll’s patent claims. As explained by the district court, “Zoll now wishes to proceed with the litigation it filed more than 2 1/2 years ago, on December 27, 2012. Oddly, however, and in tension with its prior representations that it was only seeking a stay pending IPR, and that such a stay would not exceed 18 months, Respironics opposes lifting the stay.”
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Verify Smart Corp. (“Verify”) filed a patent infringement action against Bank of America, N.A. (“BoA”), alleging infringement of United States Patent No. 8,285,648 (“the ‘648 Patent”). As part of its complaint, Verify claimed to have all substantial rights through an exclusive license. BoA filed a motion to dismiss pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(1), contending that Verify lacked standing.
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Plaintiff West View Research (“West View”) filed five separate patent infringement complaints on the same date against various automobile manufacturers. Each action asserted a combination of patents, all from the same patent family, for a total of eleven asserted patents. The district ourt consolidated the five for purposes of discovery and claim construction.

As part of the Case Management Order, the district court ordered West View to identify no more than seven claims from each patent to assert against the Defendants. For each asserted claim, the district court ordered West View to provide preliminary infringement contentions.
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The parties filed opposing motions against each side’s expert witness over a dispute between the parties as to what the word “use” means. In its Markman order, the district court had construed the term “Internet Protocol network” (“an Internet Protocol network,” “network utilizing at least one Internet Protocol,” and “a network utilizing at least one Internet Protocol”) to mean “an untrusted network using any protocol of the Internet Protocol Suite including at least one of IP, TCP/IP, UDP/IP, HTTP, and HTTP/IP. . . .”
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