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After the PTAB granted Defendant’s petition for IPR on certain of the claims in the patent-in-suit, the defendant filed a motion to stay the action pending the resolution of the IPR. The plaintiffs objected to a stay, but alternatively advocated for a partial stay allowing them to move forward with their causes of action related to Claims 12, 18, 20-22, and 25, which were not being reviewed by the PTAB.

The district court began its analysis by noting that before the court could rule on the motion to say, the claim construction deadlines approached and passed and neither party asked the district court to extend the claim construction deadlines due to the pending motion for a stay. Instead, both parties filed their opening and responsive claim construction briefs.
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Defendants Metaswitch Networks Ltd and Metaswitch Networks Corp. (“Metaswitch”) filed a motion to strike plaintiff’s expert opinions of Mr. Lanning, including his opinions that the patents in suit claim patent-eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101.

In analyzing the motion to strike, the district court noted that “[t]he ultimate question of patent eligibility under § 101 is an issue of law.” BRCA1- & BRCA2-Based Hereditary Cancer Test Patent Litig. v. Ambry Genetics Corp., 774 F.3d 755, 759 (Fed. Cir. 2014). Therefore, the district court stated that “the issue of subject matter eligibility under § 101 will not be tried to the jury in this case. No expert will be permitted to testify to the jury about whether the asserted patents claim eligible subject matter under § 101.”
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Plaintiff Better Mouse Company’s (“Better Mouse”) filed a motion to strike portions of the rebuttal expert report and exclude testimony of Richard Eichmann. Better Mouse asserted that the district court should exclude Mr. Eichmann’s testimony stating that he determined the value of U.S. Patent No. 7,532,200 (the Asserted Patent or ‘200 patent) using forward citation analysis. Better Mouse argued that Mr. Eichmann’s forward citation analysis is flawed because (1) “he failed to count citations to counterpart patents and applications, which share an identical or very similar disclosure”; and (2) “he failed to account for patent families, which are linked either directly or indirectly by a priority document and thus may also disclose the same idea as the related ‘Comparable Patent.'”

Better Mouse asserted that “[t]he Court should strike Mr. Eichmann’s forward citation count because it ignores citations to related patents that disclose the same technology, thereby grossly undercounting the number of relevant forward citations.” Plaintiff argued that the district court should follow Oracle, where the Northern District of California held “that failing to include citation counts to patents (in that case, predecessors to a reissue patent) that have ‘the same specification and drawings’ was a fatal flaw in [an] expert’s forward citation count.” (Dkt. No. 226 at 4 (citing Oracle Am., Inc. v. Google, Inc., No. C 10-03561 WHA, 2012 WL 877125 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 15, 2012).)”
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Plaintiff Advanced Transit Dynamics, Inc. (“Plaintiff” or “ATD”) filed an ex parte application for a judgment of civil contempt against Defendant Ridge Corporation’s (“Defendant” or “Ridge”) for allegedly violating of the district court’s Modified Preliminary Injunction Order (“Order”). In its ex parte application, ATD asserted that Defendant’s repair and support of accused devices sold before the issuance of the Order constitute infringement and violate the Order.

As explained by the district court, before the effective date of the preliminary injunction, Ridge had sold hundreds of GreenTail devices. Ridge claimed that repairs and replacement parts are necessary to maintain the safe use of the devices. Ridge also asserted that it provides only unpatented parts and services and does not charge for them. On October 22, 2015, Ridge notified ATD that it interpreted the Order to permit Ridge to repair and support GreenTail devices sold before September 29, 2015. ATD disagreed with the interpretation and refused to consent to Ridge’s repair or support of the GreenTail devices.
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The plaintiffs, Chrimar Systems, Inc. and Chrimar Holding Company, LLC (“Chrimar”), filed a motion to reconsider the district court’s order granting Ruckus Wireless, Inc.’s (“Ruckus”) motion to transfer venue to the Northern District of California. In the motion to reconsider, Chrimar requested that the district court modify its transfer order to order transfer effective upon the entry of the district court’s claim construction order.
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The defendants filed a motion for leave to have the forensic expert report of Curtis Rose considered as affirmative evidence. The defendants timely served Rose’s expert rebuttal report but sought to use his opinions as affirmative evidence, despite missing the deadline for doing so. According to defendants’ motion, the Rose rebuttal report analyzes “the metadata embedded within files provided to Garmin by Mark W. Atherton, which discuss using a downwardly-directed scanning sonar beam to image underwater features.” Defendants argued that, with such short notice, they could not meet the deadline but that they were able to produce to plaintiffs the files in their possession.
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Prism brought suit against Sprint alleging patent infringement of U.S. Patent Nos. 8,127,345 and 8,387,155 (the “Asserted Patents”). After the jury returned a $30 million award in favor of Prism, Prism filed a motion for an accounting and ongoing royalties. Prism requested an accounting for Sprint’s infringement after 2014 through the entry of judgment and to have a royalty set for ongoing infringement through the life of the Asserted Patents.

Sprint opposed the motion by asserting that both an accounting and ongoing royalties were improper because the jury instructions provided Prism compensation for past, present, and ongoing infringement. Prism responded that an accounting and ongoing royalties would grant Prism complete relief from Sprint’s infringement of the Asserted Patents.
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Plaintiff eDekka LLC (“eDekka”) sued a large number of defendants in Eastern District of Texas alleging infringement of U.S. Patent No. 6,266,674 (“the ‘674 Patent”) titled “Random Access Information Retrieval Utilizing User Defined Labels.” As explained by the district court, the ‘674 Patent relates to storing and labeling information and discloses a preferred embodiment that includes a cassette tape recorder with multiple buttons, a microphone, and a speaker. The majority of eDekka’s suits stemming from the ‘674 Patent target online retailers that offer a shopping cart feature on their e-commerce websites. It is this shopping cart functionality that eDekka alleges infringes the ‘674 Patent.

Numerous defendants filed motions to dismiss under 35 U.S.C. § 101, contending that the ‘674 Patent was directed to unpatentable subject matter under Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank International, 134 S. Ct. 2347 (2014). The district court granted defendants’ motions and held that the claims of the ‘674 Patent were patent-ineligible under § 101. Defendants then filed a motion asking the district court to find the cases “exceptional” under 35 U.S.C. § 285.
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Adidas AG (“Adidas”), filed a patent infringement action against Under Armour, Inc. (“Under Armour”) and MapMyFitness, Inc. (“MapMyFitness”) alleging that they infringed over a dozen patents. After Under Armour and MapMyFitness filed answers and counterclaims, the district court held a Markman Hearing and issued a claim construction order.

After the claim construction order, the defendants filed a motion to modify the district court’s claim construction. The defendants requested that the district court modify its construction of the term “route path” based on actions taken by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”). Prior to the claim construction order, Under Armour filed a Petition for inter partes review (“IPR”) of one of the patents-in-suit.
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Moblize contended that TDE Petroleum Data Solutions, Inc (“TDE”) either knew or should have known that its motion for preliminary injunction was meritless and that it was brought for the improper purpose of harassing Moblize. In its motion, Moblize asserted that “TDE’s actions were plainly designed to increase the cost of litigation for Moblize, arguing that (1) TDE purposefully brought the case in an inconvenient forum, the Eastern District of Texas; (2) TDE issued a press release along with service of process in a calculated effort to harm Moblize and induce Moblize to settle; (3) TDE improperly relied on biased expert witnesses; and (4) TDE brought irrelevant third-party discovery to harass Moblize.”
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