Published on:

by

In MLC Intellectual Property, LLC v. Micron Technology, Inc., Case No. 14-cv-3657 (N.D. Cal.), MLC filed its lawsuit on August 12, 2014, accusing Micron of infringing U.S. Patent No. 5,764,571 (“the ‘571 patent”). On October 15, 2014, Micron answered the complaint and asserted counterclaims for declaratory judgment of non-infringement and invalidity of the ‘571 patent. At the initial case management conference on November 21, 2014, the Court set a further case management conference for March 20, 2015, the tutorial hearing for June 10, 2015, and the claim construction hearing for June 17, 2015.

On December 24, 2014, Micron filed a petition for inter partes review (“IPR”) at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO”), challenging the patentability of at least each asserted claim of the ‘571 patent. The PTO accorded the IPR petition a filing date of December 24, 2014, and thus the PTO must issue a decision on whether to institute the IPR no later than June 24, 2015. On December 29, 2014, Micron filed its motion to stay pending the IPR. In its motion, Micron sought a stay through a final written decision of the IPR including any appeals to the Federal Circuit. MCL partially opposed only the portion of the stay beyond the final written decision of the PTO rather than after all appeals have been exhausted. MCL also argued that the case should not be stayed at this time until after the claim construction was completed.
Continue reading

Published on:

by

Intellectual Ventures (“IV”) filed a motion to bifurcate and stay discovery of Symantec’s patent misuse defense. The district court agreed with Intellectual Ventures. “While the Court views IV’s motion as essentially two motions one to bifurcate for a separate trial, see F.R.C.P. 42(b), and one to stay discovery, to which the general stay factors may be pertinent, see, e.g., Apotex, Inc. v. Senju Pharm. Co., 921 F. Supp. 2d 308, 313-14 (D. Del. 2013) it finds that the circumstances do not warrant departure from the Federal Circuit’s general guidance that antitrust and related issues be bifurcated in patent cases, and further finds that judicial economy warrants staying discovery related to these issues. See In re Innotron Diagnostics, 800 F.2d 1077, 1084 (Fed. Cir. 1986).”
Continue reading

Published on:

by

As the Open Text v. Box patent case gets closer to trial, Open Text sought to preclude Box from asking the jury to award damages in the form of a fully paid-up lump sum that would cover the life of the patents-in-suit. Open Text argued that such a result would preclude Open Text from seeking an injunction or post-verdict ongoing royalties, which would improperly allow the jury to decide equitable issues.

Although the district court agreed that a lump-sum award might indeed preclude the injunction and/or post-verdict ongoing royalties, the district court stated that “there is no doubt that a fully paid-up lump sum is an allowable form of damages. See, e.g., Lucent Techs., Inc. v. Gateway, Inc., 580 F.3d 1301, 1325-26 (Fed. Cir. 2009) (discussing the licensor and licensee’s option of entering into an “upfront, paid-in-full royalty” in the hypothetical negotiation).
Continue reading

Published on:

by

In this patent infringement action between defendant Adobe Systems, Inc. (“Adobe”) and plaintiff Blue Spike, LLC (“Blue Spike”), Adobe filed a motion to strike the infringement contentions (“ICs”) filed by Blue Spike. In the motion, Adobe contended that Blue Spike’s ICs fail to comply with the Patent Local Rules for the following reasons: (1) the ICs fail to provide a claim chart for each of the accused instrumentalities and instead group together all four products in violation of Patent Local Rule 3-1(c); (2) the claim chart cites to exhibits that discuss Auditude’s (a company acquired by Adobe) products generally–both fingerprinting and ad insertion products–without identifying the particular product to which each exhibit refers, rendering the documentary support insufficient under Patent Local Rule 3-2; (3) the ICs chiefly rely on online articles published by third parties that do not specifically identify the accused products and are therefore insufficient under Patent Local Rule 3-2; and (4) the ICs do not properly set forth allegations of infringement under the doctrine of equivalents in violation of Patent Local Rule 3-1(e); and (5) fail to allege indirect infringement, willful infringement, or assert a priority date in accordance with the Patent Local Rules.
Continue reading

Published on:

by

In IPR2014-01510, 01511, and 01513, in connection with its preliminary response the Patent Owner Mag Aerospace Industries, LLC, submitted an expert report by its expert in the related litigation. The expert report addressed issues relevant to the IPR proceedings, including the patentability of the claims in light of the prior art asserted in the IPRs. As explained below, the Board held that the expert report constituted “new” evidence and thus violates 37 C.F.R. § 42.107(c) even though it was created for the related litigation and not expressly for the IPR proceedings.

The Petition was filed on September 16, 2014. The expert report, filed as Exhibit 2002, is dated November 4, 2014, and was filed on January 2, 2015, along with the Patent Owner’s Preliminary Response. It also is uncontested that the expert report was created for related litigation according to the schedule for that litigation.
Continue reading

Published on:

by

In this patent infringement action, the plaintiff filed a motion to exclude the defendants’ claim construction experts. The plaintiff’s motion was based on the argument that the defendants’ disclosures did not comply with local rules in that they did not identify the actual opinions of the experts.

The district court agreed with plaintiff’s position. “After consideration of the briefing and of Defendants’ expert disclosures, the Court agrees with Plaintiff that Defendants’ disclosures do not comply with Local Rule 4.2.d.2. insofar as Defendants simply identify the general subjects on which their experts may testify, but do not identify the actual opinions Defendants expect the experts to offer.”
Continue reading

Published on:

by

After trial, HTC Corporation and HTC America, Inc. (“HTC”) filed a motion seeking to recover attorney fees and costs from plaintiff’s attorneys as well as from plaintiff Intellect Wireless, Inc. (“IW”). IW withdrew its initial opposition and conceded that the case was exceptional within the meaning of the Patent Act. HTC also contended that a finding should also be made that the attorneys for IW are jointly and personally required to satisfy HTC’s attorney fees and costs because, among other things, IW’s attorneys unreasonably and vexatiously multiplied the proceedings within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 1927.
Continue reading

Published on:

by

In an earlier filed decision, the district court had previously found that Escort and its defense counsel had knowingly misled the plaintiff, Fleming, which warranted a sanction of attorney fees. As explained by the district court, “they falsely claimed that the source code identified as ESC17363 was the current operating source code for Escort’s commercially sold products and that it provided a complete defense to Fleming’s patent infringement charges.”

After awarding attorney’s fees, the district court turned to Fleming’s motion to compel the production of certain documents. “Fleming seeks discovery of a wide variety of documents and communications in an effort to determine if Escort fabricated ESC17363 and falsely represented that it was created in the normal course of product development.”
In response, Escort argued that all of the material sought by Fleming was protected by the work product doctrine and the attorney client privilege.
Continue reading

Published on:

by

In IPR2013-00357, Patent Owner Overland Storage, Inc. filed a request for rehearing of the final written decision holding that claims 1-11 of U.S. Patent No. 6,328,766 are unpatentable. The basis for the patent owner’s reconsideration request was that, among other things, the petitioner failed to meet its burden of proof because it offered no expert testimony. As explained below, the Board rejected this position and held that a lack of expert testimony is not dispositive.
Continue reading

Published on:

by

In this patent infringement action, the Defendants requested that the court order a further Rule 30(b)(6) deposition of one of the deponents, Mr. Pang. In the motion, Defendants argued that Plaintiff’s counsel objected more than 300 times during the course of Mr. Pang’s deposition, and the objections impeded the fair examination of Mr. Pang.

In response, the Plaintiff argued that Defendants failed to show good cause to compel a second deposition of Mr. Pang and pointed out that during the deposition, Defendants never raised any issue with Mr. Pang’s responses or with Plaintiff’s counsel’s objections. Plaintiff also argued that its objections were necessary and were stated in a concise, nonargumentative and nonsuggestive manner and noted that Mr. Pang answered every question after Plaintiff’s counsel stated his objection on the record.
Continue reading