After the jury returned a verdict of approximately $390 million against SAP and the verdict was affirmed on appeal, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) preliminarily invalidated the patent (subject to appeal to the Federal Circuit). As a result, SAP moved to stay the execution of the judgment or, in the alternative, to vacate the judgment.
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In this patent infringement action, both parties moved to redact information from the transcripts and both motions were unopposed. The district court found that the information should be redacted because it had been disclosed in open court.
In reaching this conclusion, the district court noted that there were procedures in place on redacting personal information, such as social security numbers, from transcripts. “The Eastern District has procedures to redact personal information from transcripts. See The Ohio Willow Wood Company v. Thermo-Ply, Inc., 9:07-CV-274, Docket No. 27 (Clark, J.); Transcript Procedures for Attorneys (2008)1; Local Rule CV-5.2. The policy protects four categories of personal data identifiers, namely social security and taxpayer-identification numbers, dates of birth, initials of minor children, and financial account numbers.”
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On August 11, 2010, VirnetX filed suit alleging that Apple and several other defendants infringed several U.S. Patents, which generally describe a method for transparently creating a virtual private network (“VPN”) between a client computer and a target computer or disclosing a secure domain name service. The accused products were Apple’s VPN On Demand and FaceTime. The jury returned a verdict in favor of VirnetX, finding that the patens were not invalid and that Apple infringed the asserted claims. To compensate VirnetX for Apple’s infringement, the jury awarded VirnetX $368,160,000 in damages.
After the jury trial, VirnetX filed a motion for an ongoing royalty against Apple, requesting that the royalty rate be enhanced from .52% to 1.52%. VirnetX argued the royalty rate should be trebled because of changed circumstances in light of the Georgia-Pacific factors and Apple’s now willful infringement and because the bargaining positions of the parties would have dramatically shifted in favor of VirnetX. VirnetX also relied on Apple’s continuing infringement post-trial, and its inability to easily implement the non-infringing alternatives discussed at trial.
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Geotag, Inc (“Geotag”) filed a patent infringement action against Frontier Communications Corp. (“Frontier”). Frontier filed a motion for summary judgment of non-infringement, arguing that no triable issue of material fact exists as to whether their accused products practice the limitations of U.S. Patent No. 5,930,474 (“the ‘474 Patent”) requiring topical organization of a database and topical searches.
The ‘474 Patent, titled “Internet Organizer for Accessing Geographically and Topically Diverse Information,” was issued on July 27, 1999 and it claims a method, system, and apparatus for searching information both topically and geographically, wherein information relevant to one geographical area is “dynamically replicated” into a database relevant to another geographical area. As explained by the district court, “[t]he accused instrumentalities in this case are web sites or mobile applications involving geographical data. With few exceptions, these fall into four broad categories: (a) online “yellow pages”-type sites that are designed to help consumers locate businesses near a geographical area; (b) store-locator functionalities on the web sites of brick-and-mortar retailers; (c) mobile store locator “apps”; and (d) job locator sites that help potential applicants find nearby employment.”
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VirtualAgility, Inc. (“VirtualAgility) filed a patent infringement action against Salesforce.com, Inc. (“Salesforce”) over a patent purporting to cover processes and tools that provide a common framework for communicating effectively across diverse groups within an organization and for assessing key elements of the organization’s business. VirtualAgility sells cloud-based enterprise-level information technology solutions that practice the patented invention. Salesforce also provides enterprise cloud computing solutions and its products are used by the other defendants.
Salesforce filed a petition for Covered Business Method (“CBM”) review of the patent-in-suit under the America Invents Act (“AIA”). After the CBM petition was filed, all Defendants jointly filed a motion seeking to stay the district court proceedings pending the PTO’s final resolution of the CBM review. After the motion to stay was filed, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) granted the petition and instituted a CBM review of all claims of the patent-in-suit.
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As Cassidian Communications, Inc.’s (“Cassidian”) patent infringement case against Microdata GIS, Inc. (“Microdata”) moved toward trial, Cassidian moved to exclude the testimony of defendants’ expert. The motion to exclude was based on the argument that the expert report was fatally flawed in that it calculated a reasonable royalty based on an incorrect hypothetical negotiation date.
The district court found that Mr. Gallagher’s expert report is fatally flawed, in that it calculates reasonable royalty based on an incorrect hypothetical negotiation date in November 2010 – almost two years after the date infringement began in December 2008. See LaserDynamics, Inc. v. Quanta Computer, Inc., 694 F.3d 51, 75 (Fed. Cir. 2012) (“[T]he correct determination of the hypothetical negotiation date is essential for properly assessing damages.” “In general, the date of the hypothetical negotiation is the date that the infringement began.”).
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Personalized Media Communications, LLC “PMC”) filed a patent infringement action against Zynga, Inc. (“Zynga”). Prior to trial, PMC sought to use an exhibit created by Ocean Tomo, entitled “Patent Quality Inventor Study.” The study purported to rank “John Harvey (the inventor of the patents in suit) as the “top rated inventor” in the “wireless” invention category.” Zynga moved to exclude the study.
In response, PMC asserted that the exhibit was properly offered “as a secondary consideration of nonobviousness – specifically, praise by others.” The district court disagreed and found that the potential for unfair prejudice was high. “The Court notes that the study does not pertain specifically to any of the patents-in-suit, much less the asserted claims. The Court finds that the probative value of the study is minimal, as it lacks the requisite nexus to the claims at issue in this case. See, e.g., Demaco Corp. v. F. Von Langsdorff Licensing Ltd., 851 F.2d 1387, (Fed. Cir. 1988), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 956 (1988). Similarly, the potential for unfair prejudice is high.”
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Plaintiff Keranos, LLC (“Keranos”) alleged that Silicon Storage Technology (“Silicon Storage”) and other defendants infringed three related patents by manufacturing certain flash memory products. Keranos sought leave to amend its infringement contentions to add additional products that the defendants disclosed during discovery.
As explained by the district court, the Eastern District of Texas’ Local Patent Rule 3-1 requires a party claiming infringement to identify each accused product in its infringement contentions. The “identification shall be as specific as possible,” including name and model number, if known. PR 3-1(b). Generally, infringement contentions may only be amended or supplemented upon a showing of good cause. PR 3-6(b). The Court considers four factors when reviewing a motion to amend infringement contentions: “(1) the explanation for the party’s failure to meet the deadline, (2) the importance of what the Court is excluding, (3) the potential prejudice if the Court allows the thing that would be excluded, and (4) the availability of a continuance to cure such prejudice.” Alexsam Inc. v. IDT Corp., No. 2:07-cv-420-CE, 2011 WL 108725, at *1 (E.D. Tex. Jan. 12, 2011). As part of the good cause showing, the party seeking to amend must demonstrate that it was diligent in discovering the additional products and in seeking to amend. Id.; see also West v. Jewelry Innovations, Inc., No. C 07-1812, 2008 WL 4532558, at *2 (Oct. 8, 2008) (finding that a party must be diligent in discovering the basis for amendment).
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Plaintiff TQP Development, LLC (“TQP”) filed a patent infringement action against Adobe Systems Incorporated (“Adobe”). TQP was represented by the law firm of Russ August & Kabat in the action against Adobe (“RAK”). Based on the fact that RAK had previously represented Adobe in opinion work, Adobe moved to disqualify RAK.
As explained by the district court, “[i]t is undisputed that RAK, the current lead counsel for TQP, represented Adobe in a series of matters between 2006 and 2012 involving the issuance of opinion letters concerning whether Adobe products infringed certain patents. The last of these engagements, herein referred to as the “Manufacturers” matter, commenced in 2010 with an analysis of certain patents owned by Manufacturers and whether they were infringed by Adobe products. According to the Declaration of Nicholas Martini (Dkt. No. 34-4), these opinions were updated and revised several times through December 2011 (requiring about 112 hours of RAK attorney time) as additional patents were obtained by Manufacturers and additional information was received by Adobe. The last services by RAK on this matter were provided by Marc Fenster of RAK during a February 6, 2012 conference call with two of Adobe’s inside counsel and a Senior Vice President. Mr. Fenster declares that he asked during this call whether Adobe needed any further work on this matter and he was told they did not. The Adobe declarants do not recall this exchange. Both sides agree that there were no further communications regarding the matter before Mr. Fenster and RAK undertook to represent TQP in this matter several months later.”
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DDR Holdings, LLC (“DDR”) filed a patent infringement action against multiple defendants alleging infringement of U.S. patent Nos. 6,629,135 (“the ‘135 patent”) and 6,993,572 (“the ‘572 patent”). The case went to trial on October 8, 2012 against Digital River, Inc. (“Digital River, Inc. (“Digital River”), National Leisure Group, Inc., and World Travel Holdings, Inc. (collectively, “NLG”). After a five day trial, the jury returned a unanimous verdict finding that Digital River infringed several claims of the ‘572 patent and awarded damages to DDR of $750,000 for the period of the issue date of the patent, January 31, 2006, through the verdict date, October 12, 2012. The jury also found that NLG infringed several claims of the ‘572 patent and several claims of the ‘399 patent. The jury awarded damages to DDR of $750,000 for the period of the earliest issue date, January 31, 2006, through the verdict date.
After the trial, Digital River contended that it was entitled to judgment as a matter of law that the asserted claims were invalid as indefinite. Digital River argued that because the patent specification lacked the required objective to allow one of ordinary skill in the art to know when the claimed “look and feel” element has been achieved. To make this argument, Digital River relied on Datamize, LLC v. Plumtree Software, Inc. where the Federal Circuit found the term “aesthetically pleasing” to be indefinite because the patentee “offered no objective definition identifying a standard for determining when a interface screen is aesthetically pleasing.” Datamize, 417 F.3d 1342, 1350 (Fed. Cir. 2005).
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