Patent Lawyer Blog
In this patent infringement action, the defendant moved to dismiss the plaintiff’s complaint for the plaintiff’s failure to participate in discovery and for ignoring several court orders. The motion explained that dismissal sanctions were appropriate in the light of, among other things, the plaintiff’s failure to comply with court orders, sanction order and to appear for a court hearing.
In analyzing the motion, the district court explained that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37 empowers the district court to compel compliance with discovery procedures though a broad choice of remedies and penalties, including dismissal with prejudice. Griffin v. Aluminum Co. of Am., 564 F.2d 1171, 1172 (5th Cir. 1977). “Dismissal of a complaint with prejudice is such a drastic remedy that a district court should only apply it only in extreme circumstances.” Id. However, dismissal with prejudice may be appropriate where a plaintiff’s failure to comply involves “either repeated refusals or an indication of full understanding of discovery obligations coupled with a bad faith refusal to comply.” Id.
The district court concluded that dismissal with prejudice was appropriate under the circumstances. As noted by the Magistrate Judge, the plaintiff had “willfully, in bad faith, and in disregard of his responsibilities failed to comply with the Court’s Order.” Furthermore, since the case was filed eight months ago, “Plaintiff has been sanctioned twice and has failed to: respond to an order to show cause; timely file a case management report; appear for a hearing; comply with the Court’s Order compelling discovery; and, most recently, respond to three separate motions by Defendant.” The district court found that these repeated violations establish a “clear record of delay or willful contempt,” far beyond mere negligence or confusion. See Goforth v. Owens, 766 F.2d 1533, 1535 (11th Cir. 2010). Given these “extreme circumstances,” the district court determined that dismissal with prejudice was warranted. See Griffin, 564 F.2d at 1172.
In this patent infringement action, the plaintiff, International Designs Corporation, LLC (“IDC”), moved to disqualify the counsel for defendant Hair Art Int’l, Inc. (“Hair Art”). IDC moved to disqualify counsel for Hair Art on the grounds that Hair Art’s counsel also represented/represents an entity named Halo Couture, LLC, a California limited liability company (“HC1”) and, potentially, Halo Couture, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company (“HC2”), which were apparently “sister companies” of IDC and share a common parent.
In this patent infringement action, the defendant, Playmonster LLC (“Playmonster”), requested that the district court stay discovery during the pendency of its forthcoming dispositive motion. As part of its request, Playmonster contended that a dispositive motion “would be the most efficient resolution of this case,” and that a stay of discovery would promote judicial efficiency and conserve the Parties’ resources, which would include reducing the attorney’s fees that would be spent on the case should the dispositive motion be granted.
Stuebing had previously served multiple discovery requests, including interrogatories and document requests. Over a year after responses to the discovery requests were due, the district court ordered the defendant to fully respond to the requests in several different court orders. Despite these orders, the defendant provided Stuebing with incomplete discovery information.
As explained by the district court, Bayer asserted that the license resulting from the hypothetical negotiation would be a non-exclusive, running royalty license between competitors, and of Dr. Rausser’s four selected licenses, only one was a non-exclusive license, two were between competitors, and none of them used a running royalty.
In the ongoing litigation war between Qualcomm and Apple, spanning multiple forums around the country, Qualcomm moved to exclude Apple’s technical experts’ reliance on certain license agreements by asserting that the agreement involved technology that was not sufficiently comparable. After reviewing the license agreements, the experts’ opinions, and the law, the district court concluded that Qualcomm’s motion should be granted.
patents at issue here. The Federal Circuit has cautioned “that ‘district courts performing reasonable royalty calculations [must] exercise vigilance when considering past licenses to technologies other than the patent in suit,’ and ‘must account for differences in the technologies and economic circumstances of the contracting parties[.]’” VirnetX, Inc. v. Cisco Systems, Inc., 767 F.3d 1308, 1330 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (citations omitted). “When relying on licenses to prove a reasonable royalty, alleging a loose or vague comparability between different technologies or licenses does not suffice.” LaserDynamics, Inc. v. Quanta Computer, Inc., 694 F.3d 51, 79 (Fed. Cir. 2012).
In a patent infringement action, Takeda Pharmaceuticals America, Inc., and Takeda Pharmaceuticals U.S.A., Inc.’s (collectively, “Takeda”) filed a motion to disqualify Baker Botts, L.L.P. (“Baker Botts”) from representing Defendants Zydus Pharmaceuticals (USA) Inc. and Cadila Healthcare Limited (collectively, “Zydus”). Takeda moved to disqualify Baker Botts from representing Zydus based on Baker Botts’ alleged previous representation of Ethypharm S.A. (“Ethypharm”) in earlier litigation involving Takeda’s Prevacid® SolutabTM product.
In this patent infringement action, the plaintiff, Whirlpool Properties (“Whirlpool”) noticed several depositions of third-party witnesses near the discovery cut-off. The defendant, Filters Fast, moved for an order to stop the depositions.