Articles Posted in E.D. Texas

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SFA Systems (“SFA”) filed a patent infringement action against Amazon and twenty-six other defendants in 2011. SFA subsequently timely served its infringement contentions pursuant to the local rules in the Eastern District of Texas. After receiving discovery from Amazon, SFA requested that Amazon supplement its discovery responses to produce documents relating to the Kindle Fire and the Amazon Mobile application. Amazon declined to do so on the basis that the Kindle Fire and the Amazon Mobile app were not accused in the infringement contentions. After several attempts to meet and confer, SFA sought to amend its infringement contentions.

As explained by the district court, the local Patent Rule 3-6 sets forth the procedures for amending infringement contentions. This rule provides that infringement contentions. “shall be deemed to be…final contentions.” Patent Rule 3-69a). When a party seeks to amend or supplement its invalidity contentions and considers four factors in ruling on motions for leave to do so: (1) the explanation for the party’s failure to meet the deadline; (2) the importance of the thing that would be excluded; (3) the potential prejudice in allowing the thing that would be excluded; and (4) the availability of a continuance to cure such prejudice. Global Sessions LP, 2012 WL 1903903, at *2 (citing S & W Enters., L.L.C. v. Southtrust Bank of Ala., NA, 315 F.3d 533, 536 (5th Cir. 2003)).
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After a jury determined that certain defendants induced infringement of the plaintiff’s patents by, among other things, selling unregulated and semi-regulated bus converters to third parties, such as Cisco, Cisco moved to intervene into the case. The district court explained that “[t]he jury found that Cisco, among others, was a direct infringer whose products incorporating Defendants’ bus converters directly infringed SynQor’s patents when they were sold in the United States. Judge Ward entered a Permanent Injunction and awarded supplemental damages for Defendants’ continued sale of bus converters through January 24, 2011.”

Cisco sought to intervene as a matter of right pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 24(a). Cisco asserted that it purchased intermediate bus converters (“IBCs”) from the Defendants that are the subject of the damages and, as a result,. Cisco sought to intervene for two reasons:

• “Cisco has agreed with certain defendants to assume liability for damages that may be awarded in this case, giving Cisco a significant interest in ensuring the damages awarded to SynQor are accurately calculated and not inflated; and
• Cisco has the most relevant and important evidence regarding the number of IBC shipments for which SynQor is entitled to a royalty.”
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Plaintiff Alexsam, Inc. (“Alexsam”) alleged infringement of several patents against Best Buy Stores, L.P. (“Best Buy”) that pertain to stored value/debit cards. Best Buy moved to exclude the opinion of Alexsam’s damage expert, James L. McGovern, asserting that Mr. McGovern was applying a “rule of thumb” analysis that had no basis to calculate a reasonable royalty.

After setting out Rule 702 and the Daubert factors, the district court noted that “[t]he Daubert factors might be applicable when assessing the reliability of non-scientific expert testimony, depending upon ‘the particular circumstances of the particular case at issue.’ Kumho Tire Company, Ltd. v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137, 150 (1999). This analysis focuses on the reasoning or methodology employed by the expert, not the ultimate conclusion. Watkins, 121 F.3d at 989. The purpose being ‘to make certain that an expert, whether basing testimony upon professional studies or personal experience, employs in the courtroom the same level of intellectual rigor that characterizes the practice of an expert in the relevant field.’ Skidmore v. Precision Printing and Packaging, Inc., 188 F.3d 606, 618 (5th Cir.1999), quoting Kumho Tire, 119 S.Ct. at 1176. Thus, the court ‘must review only the reasonableness of the expert’s use of such an approach, together with his particular method of analyzing data so obtained, to draw a conclusion regarding the specific matter to which the expert testimony is directly relevant.’ American Tourmaline Fields v. International Paper Co., 1999 WL 242690 at *2 (N.D. Tex. Apr.19, 1999), citing Kumho Tire, 119 S.Ct. at 1177.
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Hitachi Consumer Electronics Co. LTD. (“Hitachi”) filed a patent infringement action against Top Victory Electronics (Taiwan) Co LTD (“Top Victory”). As the case approached trial, the parties filed several motions in limine. In particular, Top Victory filed a motion in limine to preclude Hitachi from arguing to the jury that its failure to obtain an opinion of counsel could be used against it in determining whether its infringement was willful.

The district court determined that Top Victory was essentially asking for the district court to apply the new Advice of Counsel Provision from the America Invents Act. “In their briefing, Defendants effectively ask the Court to apply the Advice of Counsel provision of the American Invents Act (AIA), which expressly prohibits the use of an accused infringer’s decision not to obtain advice of counsel as evidence of willful infringement to this case. See 35 U.S.C. § 298.”
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Core Wireless filed an action against Apple that alleged infringement of several patents in the Eastern District of Texas. Apple moved to transfer the case pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §1404(a).

As explained by the court, “Core Wireless is a corporation duly organized and existing under the laws of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, with a principal place of business at 16, Avenue paseur L-2310 Luxembourg. . . . Core Wireless maintains a wholly-owned subsidiary, Core Wireless Licensing Ltd. (“Core Wireless USA”), a Texas corporation with a principal place of business at 5700 Granite Parkway, Suite 960, Plano, TX 75024. . . .Core Wireless USA has 6 employees who live in or near Plano, TX, and is Director Jerry Mills lives full time in Dallas, TX. Id. at ¶ 16.”
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Azure Networks, LLC and Tri-County Excelsior Foundation (“Plaintiffs,” “Azure” or “TCEF”) filed a patent infringement action against several defendants, including Qualcomm and Marvell, among others. As explained by the court, “[t]he ‘129 Patent is entitled ‘Personal Area Network with Automatic Attachment and Detachment’ and discloses a Personal Area Network (“PAN”), which is managed by a hub device and can support wireless “attachment” of multiple Personal Electronic Accessories (“PEAs”). ‘129 Patent at 3:10-32.”

The court further explained the ownership of the patent as follows: “Robert Donaghey, the sole inventor of the ‘129 Patent, assigned his rights to BBN Technologies Corp. (“BBN”) in 2007, who then assigned the ‘129 Patent to Azure. Azure is a Texas limited liability company with its principal place of business in Longview, Texas. Complaint at 2. In June 2010, Azure donated numerous patents and patent applications (including the application that later issued as the patent-in-suit) to TCEF. TCEF is a Texas non-profit corporation with its principal place of business in Marshall, Texas. Id. Only July 30, 2010, TCEF and Azure entered into an exclusive license agreement whereby Azure received a ‘worldwide, transferable, exclusive license under the [‘129 Patent], with the right to sublicense others, to (i) make, have made, use, sell, offer to sell, import and lease any products, (ii) use and perform any method, process, and/or services, and (iii) otherwise practice any invention in any manner, such that Azure has full right to enforce and/or sublicense the [‘129 Patent].'”
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Blue Spike, LLC (“Blue Spike”) filed a patent infringement action against Biolink Solutions LTD. (“Biolink”) and Biometric, LLC. Biolink is a Russian company that has no offices, employees, agents, distributors or related entities in Texas, but does business in Texas according to the complaint. Blue Spike served Biolink with the complaint through the Texas Secretary of State. Biolink moved to quash service of the summons on the ground that it was not served through the procedures set forth in the Hague Convention.
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In a patent infringement action brought by Alexsam, Inc. (“Alexsam”) against thirteen separate defendants, grouped into seven issuers of electronic gift cards, the Eastern District of Texas decided to sever the defendants as the case got closer to trial. As explained by the court, “[t]his is the sixth lawsuit that Alexsam has pursued in the Eastern District of Texas alleging infringement of the patents-in-suit, U.S. Patent Nos. 6,000,608 (“the ‘608 patent”) and 6,189,787 (“the ‘787 patent”), which relate to stored value/debit cards. The final pretrial conference is currently scheduled March 4, 2013, with a single trial to begin no more than four weeks later. Given the unique issues that exist within the defendant/defendant groups and the complexities involved in attempting to try this case in one trial in less than two months, the Court must sever the seven groups of defendants into their own separate cause of action.”
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Garnet Digital sued AT&T, Apple and several other defendants for patent infringement and included a claim for indirect infringement. Garnet Digital accused all of the defendants of infringing U.S. Patent No. 5,379,421, which is entitled “Interactive Terminal for the Access of Remote Database Information.” Garnet Digital made the same allegation against each of the defendants, as follows: “[Defendant] directly or through intermediaries, made, had made, used , imported, provided, supplied, distributed, sold, and/or offered for sale products and/or systems (including at least [Defendant’s product(s)]) that infringed one or more claims of he 421 patnet, and/or induced infringement and/or contributed to the infringement of one or more of the claims of the 421 patent by its customers.”

AT&T and Apple, as well a many of the other defendants, moved to dismiss the indirect infringement claims. Verizon and other defendants also moved to dismiss the patent infringement claims. Both motions were made pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b(6) and the AT&T, Apple motion asserted that the indirect infringement claims did not comply with Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Verizon asserted that the direct infringement claims were insufficient because they did not identify the patent claims asserted, they failed to identify products or services and failed to identify how accused products provide the claimed functionality to perform the claimed method. Garnet Digital responded by claiming that its complaint satisfied Rule 8 and specifically Form 18.
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Patent Harbor filed a patent infringement action against Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment (“Fox”) and other studios, such as The Weinstein Company LLC, Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., Home Box Office, Inc., and Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Inc. (collectively the “Studio Defendants”). The Studio Defendants allegedly infringed the patent by the use of authoring of scene selection menus included in DVDs and Blu-ray discs. The patent-in-suit describes an improvement to an interactive video system capable of displaying content based on video.

Claim 6 of the patent-in-suit states: “A method for assembling content addressable video, comprising: storing, in addressable memory, a plurality of [frames] of video data in storage locations having addresses, each frame defining a video image having a content for display; storing tags in memory for [frames] of video data in the plurality, the tags indicating the contents of the video images defined by the associated [frames]; executing program steps which assemble and display a content video image in response to the tags, the content video image including positions indicating the content of corresponding [frames] of video data in the plurality; and executing program steps which associate the positions in the content video image with addresses of storage locations storing corresponding frames of video data.”
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