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In this patent infringement action, Plaintiffs’ filed a motion for a standard protective order to prevent the defendant from sharing confidential information. The district court denied the motion because the motion was not in the form of a joint stipulated as required by the local rules.
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In an IPR petition filed by petitioner Salesforce.com, the petitioner sought review of patent owner, VirtualAgility, Inc.’s U.S. Patent No. 8,095,413. The PTAB instituted trial on November 19, 2013, the Patent Owner filed its Patent Owner Response on January 28, 2014, the Petitioner then filed its Reply on April 11, 2014, oral argument was held on July 14, 2014, and a Final Written Decision was rendered on September 16, 2014. In the Final Written Decision, the Boart held that Petitioner has proven, by a preponderance of the evidence, that claims 1-21 of the ‘413 patent are unpatentable.

As a result, on November 18, 2014, the Patent Owner filed a Notice of Appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. At the same time, the parties filed a Joint Motion to File Settlement Agreement as Confidential Business Information. Subsequently, on November 21, 2014, the Patent Owner requested authorization to file a motion to vacate the Final Written Decision and to terminate the proceeding after the Final Written Decision was vacated. After hearing from the Patent Owner, the Board denied its request.
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Reflectix, Inc., Innovative Insulation, Inc., TVM Building Products, Inc., Energy Efficient Solutions, LLC, and Home Depot U.S.A., Inc.’s (collectively, “Defendants”) filed a motion to stay pending and Inter Partes Review (“IPR”) that was filed with the Patent Trials and Appeals Board (“PTAB”). The plaintiff opposed the motion to stay on the grounds that the IPR had not yet been granted for review by the PTAB.

In analyzing the motion to say, the district court noted that “it has the inherent power to control its own docket, including the power to stay proceedings. See Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681, 706 (1997) (‘The District Court has broad discretion to stay proceedings as an incident to its power to control its own docket.’). How to best manage the court’s docket ‘calls for the exercise of judgment, which must weigh competing interests and maintain an even balance.’ Landis v. N. Am. Co., 299 U.S. 248, 254-55 (1936).”
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In this patent infringement action, the defendant filed a motion to strike the “errata sheets” to deposition testimony of two of plaintiffs’ expert witnesses, Neill Luebke and Robert Sinclair. The plaintiff opposed the motion to strike.

As explained by the district court, “[t]here is an old joke that only lawyers and house painters can change black to white, and vise versa. In a sense, that is the situation this motion presents. Defendant complains that the plaintiffs’ witnesses Luebke and Sinclair submitted errata sheets regarding their respective depositions which starkly changed the substance of their testimonies. For example, in several instances, Sinclair changed his deposition answer from ‘no’ to ‘yes.’ In other places, a somewhat tenuous answer of, ‘I believe not,’ was changed to a dogmatic and emphatic ‘yes.’ Similarly, Luebke changed, ‘I don’t believe so,’ to ‘yes,’ and ‘At the present time, I have not,’ to ‘Yes.’ And there are other examples.”
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In an IPR petition filed by petitioner Shire Development LLC, the petitioner sought review of patent owner, LCS Group, LLC’s U.S. Patent No. 8,318,813. In its mandatory statement, the patent owner timely designated outside counsel to represent it in the IPR proceeding. Subsequently, the designated counsel for the patent owner sought authorization to withdraw from representation. According to the patent owner’s counsel, the inventor desired to represent himself in the proceeding.

The Board denied the request of the patent owner’s counsel on the grounds that the patent-at-issue is assigned to a juristic entity, i.e., a legal entity that is not a natural person, LCS Group, LLC, which also is designated as the real party-in-interest. Under 37 C.F.R. § 1.31 (2012), because the real party-in-interest in this proceeding is a corporation, a juristic entity, it can only appear through counsel.
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After a jury trial in which TransPerfect was awarded damages, TransPerfect moved for an award of supplemental damages under 35 U.S.C. § 284 on the theory that the jury did not award it damages for infringement that occurred after December 31, 2011. TransPerfect contended that the jury’s damage award of $1,006,002 failed to account for its post-2011 damages because the defendant, MotionPoint, failed to produce any financial records later than 2011.

TransPerfect contended that the parties’ experts were therefore unable to examine any post-2011 financial information and the jury could not have included these damages in its verdict.
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In an IPR petition filed by petitioner C&D Zodiac, Inc., the petitioner sought review of patent owner, B/E Aerospace, Inc.’s U.S. Patent No. 8,590,838, directed to space-saving aircraft enclosures, including lavatories, closets, and galleys. The petition challenged the validity of claims under Section 102 and 103 based on, among other things, a publication entitled McDonnell Douglas DC-10 Customer Configuration Summary (Oct. 1978) referred to as an “Orange Book,” presumably because of its orange cover.

The Board granted the petition based on multiple grounds, including the obviousness of the claims in view of a prior art patent to Betts and the Orange Book. Critical to the Board’s holding was its determination that the Orange Book satisfied the printed publication requirement for prior art purposes.
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In this patent infringement action, Apple challenged the opinions of the plaintiff’s damage expert on several bases, including the determination of a royalty rate based on the price of third-party applications.

First, Apple contended that the expert’s, Mr. Bratic’s, “analysis is deficient and unreliable because MTEL’s technical expert categorically stated that he never evaluated any third party apps.” The district court rejected this challenge as the technical expert, Dr. Nettleton, asserted that he did, in fact, have conversations with Mr. Bratic over the course of “two, possibly three, phone calls in fact.” The district court also stated that “Apple’s complaint that Mr. Bratic is merely ‘parroting conclusions’ also fails, as even Apple acknowledges that Mr. Bratic ‘must … rely on a technical expert to support his opinion concerning the functionality of the selected third-party apps’ since he is not himself a technical expert.” Although the district court was sensitive to the “credibility concerns” raised by Apple, it stated that cross-examination was “the ideal vehicle with which to address such concerns.”
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Defendant Stealth Cam, LLC (“Stealth Cam”) requested that the district court reconsider its Claim Construction Order holding that the term “extending parallel” was not indefinite.

The district court first noted that under the local rules a party must show “compelling circumstances” to obtain permission to file a motion to reconsider, D. Minn. L.R. 7.1(j), and that a motion to reconsider should not be employed to relitigate old issues, but rather to “afford an opportunity for relief in extraordinary circumstances.” Dale & Selby Superette & Deli v. U.S. Dept. of Agric., 838 F. Supp. 1346, 1348 (D. Minn. 1993).
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In the matter pending in the Western District of Texas, Katrinecz, et al. v. Motorola Mobility LLC, Motorola moved to dismiss the complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. In its complaint, the plaintiffs alleged that Motorola infringed U.S. Patent No. 7,284,872 entitled “Low power, low cost illuminated keyboards and keypads.” The ‘872 patent lists Plaintiffs Katrinecz and Byrd as the inventors. In April 1997, the plaintiffs conceived of a keyboard invention and during the summer of 1997 they developed prototypes. In October 1997, they engaged attorneys and filed their first patent application for the invention on August 26, 1998.

During this time, on August 11, 1998, Katrinecz and his spouse executed a Marital Settlement Agreement dissolving their nine-year marriage. The Florida State court rendered a Final Judgment Dissolving Marriage on September 17, 1998. Motorola contended that the invention of the ‘872 patent was developed during the marriage and thus should be considered personal property subject to equitable distribution upon dissolution of the marriage. Motorola further asserted that “when a marital settlement agreement fails to address personal property, that property is co-owned by both spouses by operation of law upon entry of final judgment dissolving the marriage.” Consequently, because the Agreement did not expressly address the disposition of the rights to the invention, Motorola argued that the rights became co-owned by the inventor and his ex-spouse upon entry of the final judgment on September 17, 1998. Because the ex-spouse co-owned the patent when it issued and because she was not a party to the action, the court lacks subject matter jurisdiction and must dismiss the case.
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