In this patent infringement action between Chrimar Systems, Inc. (“Chrimar”) and Alcatel-Lucent USA, Inc. (“Lucent”). Lucent sought production of the damages expert report of Plaintiffs’ damages expert, Robert Mills, that was created for a litigation currently pending in the Northern District of California.
Chrimar opposed the request on the ground that the expert report was covered by a protective order issued by another Federal court. The district court in Texas agreed.
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When this patent infringement action began, the plaintiff explained that it was concerned that it would not be able to obtain important discovery if Ricoh Company Ltd. (“RCL”), which is the parent company of the defendants, Ricoh Electronics, Inc. (“REI”) and Ricoh Americas Corp. (“RAC”) were dismissed as a party. When they moved for dismissal, the defendants represented that: “IV identifies no information exclusively within the possession of RCL that is germane to its infringement case. On the other hand, it would be unreasonable and a hardship on RCL to force it to participate in litigation halfway around the world, particularly when RAC and REI are able and willing to contest IV’s claims.”
As explained by the district court, after the dismissal of RCL, REI and RAC stated that the technical documents sought by IV were not in their possession or control, but might be obtained from RCL. RCL then refused to provide the documents voluntarily. Unable to obtain the discovery from REI and RAC, IV sought discovery from RCL through international Letters Rogatory. That request was denied by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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In this patent infringement action, a dispute arose between Plaintiff Blackbird Tech LLC (“Blackbird”) and the defendants over the terms of proposed protective orders to govern the use of confidential information produced. Although the parties agreed that a protective order was appropriate, they disagreed on the level of access by Blackbird’s in-house counsel and the scope of a patent prosecution bar.
The district court explained that the protective order presented a unique circumstance given Blackbird’s business, which was described as “a new model for individual inventors and small companies to monetize their intellectual property.” “Blackbird achieves this goal by acquiring patents and litigating on behalf of itself, using experienced patent litigators that are directly employed by Blackbird instead of outside counsel, at a great cost savings.” Blackbird also described the acquisition of patents as being “essential” to its business. An important part of Blackbird’s business model is to maintain “a diverse portfolio of patents and not to be concentrated in one technological area.”
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As this patent infringement action proceeded to trial, Google filed a motion in limine to exclude evidence of Google’s petitions for Inter Partes Review (“IPR”) of claims of the patent-in-suit and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (“PTAB”) denial of institution of those petitions. Google had previously filed petitions with the PTAB seeking to invalidate the patent-in-suit and the PTAB had declined to institute review of the petitions.
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The defendant, Echoworx, brought a motion to strike ZixCorp’s infringement contentions. ZixCorp had served its original infringement contentions on Echoworx, contending that the elements of the patent-in-suit are software limitations, and stated that it intended to supplement its infringement contentions after Echoworx produced source code for each of Echoworx’s accused instrumentalities.
After Echoworx produced its source code for review, ZixCorp served P.R. 3-1(g) Amendments to Its Infringement Contentions (“amended contentions”). Echoworx then complained to ZixCorp that ZixCorp’s amended infringement contentions were deficient under 3-1(c) and ZixCorp had violated the Discovery Order by refusing to provide the identifications of source code for software limitations required by P.R. 3-1(g).
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In this patent infringement action, Mobile Telecommunications Tech., LLC (“MTel”) filed against Blackberry Corp., MTel moved to exclude certain exhibits that were archived press releases published by RCR Wireless and SkyTel webpage screenshots of advertisements. MTel objected that these exhibits are inadmissible because they have not been authenticated by a representative from the Internet Archive service, or “Wayback Machine.” MTel also objected that all of the exhibits constitute hearsay and that none of the exhibits were produced during discovery.
BlackBerry conceded that none of the exhibits were previously produced. It contended that the failure to produce the documents was harmless because they were publicly available. The district court disagreed.
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Summary: In the decision referenced below, the court declined to modify a judgment pursuant to Rule 60(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure even though the PTAB had found several claims of the patent-in-suit invalid.
After a trial and an appeal to the Federal Circuit, which affirmed the royalty damages verdict in favor of the plaintiff, the defendant moved the district court to grant it relief from the judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(6). The defendant argued that it would be unjust for the court to enforce a judgment in which ongoing collateral proceedings before the PTAB may render certain patents invalid and may have impacted the fairness of the trial.
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The defendant filed a petition for Inter Partes Review (“IPR”) with the Patent Office. As part of its application, it submitted a 65 page brief along with several hundred page s of accompanying evidence. The plaintiffs submitted a 60 page brief along with its own evidence in response. After the Patent Office declined to institute review of the patent-in-suit, the plaintiffs contended that the denial of the IPR was a final decision by an administrative board and that the defendant was collaterally estopped from bringing those same arguments again before the district court.
After reviewing the law on collateral estoppel, the district court noted that the defendant “did not make it past the preliminary proceedings in their attempted IPR.” The district court concluded that this was important for several reasons. “First, it means a ‘trial’ was never conducted o[n] the merits. Instead, the ‘proceedings’ were limited to a single petition brief, a response, and any accompanying evidence. Second, there was not a final written decision issued. The Board denied further review, that is, it denied initiating the IPR proceedings. Accordingly, no final written decision was necessary.”
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After the district court granted the plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment of patent infringement, the district court addressed whether a permanent injunction was appropriate. The patent at issue, U.S. Patent No. 6,065,794 (‘794 Patent), which is titled “Security Enclosure for Open Deck Vehicles,” relates to storage management devices, or “trunk enclosures,” that partition and establish a lockable trunk in the rear of convertible cars.
The district court then proceeded to address the four factor for determining whether an injunction should issue. Addressing irreparable harm, the plaintiff argued that it had suffered and will continue to suffer irreparable harm as a result of the defendant’s infringement because the defendant is a direct competitor and the plaintiff has lost sales and market share due to Defendant’s infringement. In response, the defendant argued that the plaintiff could not show irreparable harm because it had not demonstrated that customers purchase the infringing devices because of the patented features and therefore, the plaintiff had failed to satisfy the “causal nexus” requirement.
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The defendant filed a motion to compel, seeking a wide array of discovery against Plaintiffs Dyson, Inc. and Dyson Limited (collectively, “Plaintiffs”) to produce emails belonging to James Dyson (“Dyson”). Plaintiffs asserted that Dyson is Plaintiffs’ “global leader” and one of the named inventors on the patents-in-suit.
Although plaintiffs agreed to produce Dyson’s emails that are relevant to the issue of “inventorship,” they refused to produce documents relating to other issues, such as claim construction or infringement. The plaintiffs refused to produce any such emails because the “apex doctrine” requires that the defendants show that they could not obtain such evidence from other sources before obtaining them from high-ranking corporate officials, such as Dyson.
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