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In a ruling that is likely to become more and more common after the passage of the America Invents Act, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California dismissed all but one of the defendants in a patent infringement action for improper joinder. In February 2010, the plaintiff filed a patent infringement action against Apple, Dell, HP, Lenovo and Sony for allegedly infringing a patent for dynamic power management of solid-state memories. The plaintiff alleged that each of the defendants sells computers and/or computer systems that infringe the patent-in-suit.

Plaintiff filed a motion seeking leave to amend the complaint to join five additional defendants on the ground that the new defendants’ products also allegedly infringe the patent-in-suit. The existing defendants then filed a motion to dismiss the complaint as to all but one of the defendants based on the argument that the defendants were misjoined in the action.
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Plaintiff AlmondNet, Inc. filed a patent infringement action against Microsoft Corporation based on four patents pertaining to Internet advertising. Microsoft filed several affirmative defenses and counterclaims against AlmondNet, including a defense and counterclaim that AlmondNet engaged in inequitable conduct before the PTO by failing to disclose three articles related to Internet advertising and three existing Internet advertising systems. AlmondNet moved to dismiss the inequitable conduct counterclaim and the district court granted the motion with leave to amend to plead inequitable conduct with particularity.

Microsoft subsequently amended its answer and counterclaim and AlmondNet moved to strike the inequitable conduct defense and to dismiss Microsoft’s counterclaim for inequitable conduct. The district court determined that Microsoft’s amended pleading was sufficient and denied the motion.
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Plaintiff Bruce Saffran, M.D. (“Dr. Saffran”) filed a patent infringement case against Johnson & Johnson. After a jury trial, the jury returned a verdict in favor of Dr. Saffran finding that the patent was valid and that Johnson & Johnson had willfully infringed the patent. The jury found damages in the amount of $482 million. After the jury returned its verdict, the district court granted a Fed.R.Civ.P. 50(a) motion, finding no willful infringement. Johnson & Johnson also moved for a new trial under Fed.R.Civ.P. 59.

Johnson & Johnson brought its motion on two separate grounds: (1) the evidence of willful infringement tainted the trial proceedings and (2) counsel for Plaintiff violated the “Golden Rule.” With respect to the willful infringement argument, the district court noted that it could only make this determination after the development of a full record and it was not appropriate to dismiss the willful infringement allegations on summary judgment. The district court also ruled that it was not convinced a new trial was warranted because of any alleged prejudice to Johnson & Johnson due to the introduction of the willfulness claims at trial. To reach this conclusion, the district court found that the argument failed because the evidence would have been admissible for induced infringement and that, regardless, the jury was instructed separately regarding the law for each type of claim and the type of evidence that could be considered for that claim. Notably, Johnson & Johnson did not object to the jury instructions on these points.
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TiVo filed a patent infringement action against Verizon and Verizon counterclaimed alleging that TiVo infringed six of its patents. TiVo raised inequitable conduct counterclaims against certain of the Verizon patents. Verizon filed a motion to dismiss, which the district court granted under the principles set forth in Exergen Corp. v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 575 F.3d 1312 (Fed. Cir. 2009), but permitted TiVo to amend its pleading. TiVo amended its pleadings and Verizon renewed its motion to dismiss.

The district court began its analysis by noting that the Federal Circuit’s decision in Therasense, Inc. v. Becton, Dickinson and Company, 2011 WL 2028255 (Fed. Cir. May 25, 2011) was decided after the parties had completed their briefing on the motion. Although Therasense changed the standard for proving inequitable conduct, the district court stated that Thereasense did not address the pleading standard because it was decided based on the review of a bench trial. Accordingly, Exergen remains the leading authority on the pleading standard for inequitable conduct. “Exergen held that for ‘pleading inequitable conduct in patent cases, Rule 9(b) requires identification of the specific who, what, when, where, and how of the material misrepresentation or omission committed before the PTO.'”
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Plaintiff filed a patent infringement action based on patents for wireless communications networks and a system and method for monitoring and controlling remote devices. Defendants moved to dismiss the plaintiff’s claims for direct infringement and for inducing and contributory infringement based on the argument that plaintiff failed to identify a specific system or product in its complaint. Defendants also asserted that plaintiff failed to adequately plead indirect infringement because the complaint did not identify the underlying infringing product, the direct infringer, or the alleged infringing claims. One of the defendants also asserted that the indirect infringement contentions should be dismissed because the identification of customers as the direct infringers is insufficient and the plaintiff failed to plead any facts to show that defendants knew of the patent and intended to encourage infringement.

The Magistrate Judge recommended denying the motion. After discussing the pleading standards under Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a)(2), the Supreme Court’s recent decisions in Twombly (Bell Atl. Corp v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 555-56, 570 (2007))and Iqbal (Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. 1937, 1949-50, 1953 (2009)), and Fed.R.Civ.P. 84, Form 18, the court concluded that plaintiff’s allegations of direct and indirect infringement were sufficient.
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Plaintiff filed a patent infringement action against the defendant alleging that certain of defendant’s T-shirt transfer products infringed plaintiff’s patent. Defendant filed an answer and counterclaim which accused the plaintiff of inequitable conduct in amending its patent during a reissuance of the patent. Defendant claimed that plaintiff deliberately pursued a broadened reissue patent based on her learning of material faults in the patent after having had an opportunity to analyze defendant’s products and technology. Defendant’s primary contention was that the amendments made during the reissuance proceeding added new material to the patent.

As the district court wrote, “[a] reissue patent that enlarges the scope of the claims contained in an original patent shall not be granted unless it is applied for within two years of the grant of the original patent.” The reissue application for the patent-in-suit was filed more than two years after the issuance of the patent. Plaintiff moved to dismiss the inequitable conduct defense on the grounds that the facts alleged did not support a plausible inference that the plaintiff (1) made an affirmative misrepresentation of material fact or failed to disclose material information to the PTO during the reissue examination and (2) intended to deceive the PTO.
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In a recent ruling from the United States District Court for the Sothern District of California, a Magistrate Judge allowed discovery to take place on an inequitable conduct defense after the discovery cut-off. The defendant propounded document requests a little more than 30 days before the discovery cut-off and plaintiff produced documents in response to those requests the day before the discovery cut-off. On the last day for discovery, defendant took the deposition of the inventor of the patent-in-suit.

Based on information learned during the deposition and documents produced by plaintiff at the close of discovery, defendant contended that the plaintiff made material misrepresentations to the Patent Office to overcome a section 112 rejection. Based on that contention, defendant sought leave to amend its answer, assert an affirmative defense of inequitable conduct and to pursue additional discovery directed toward that defense.
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Plaintiff Hurricane Shooters, LLC sought summary judgment of no invalidity on Defendant’s defenses of prior inventorship under Section 102(g) and lack of utility under Section 101. The patents-in-suit involve drinking cups for serving mixed drinks in bars and restaurants having a plural chamber that optimizes the mixing of fluids as they are simultaneously poured while minimizing interference with the nose of the drinker.

Defendant’s invalidity defense was based on a plural chamber “bomb cup” invented by a competitor. Rejecting Plaintiff’s evidence of an earlier date of invention in August 2004 consisting only of the uncorroborated inventor’s testimony, Plaintiff’s inventors’ evidence showed that they invented their plural chamber cup in November of 2004. Defendant, however, presented evidence that its plural chamber cup was invented in October 2004. The Hurricane Shooters court was faced with the issue of whether Defendant’s evidence of an earlier invention was sufficient to survive summary judgment.
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After the district court determined that the plaintiff’s patent was infringed and was not invalid based on anticipation or obviousness, the district court held a bench trial on the issue of damages. The district court first analyzed the issue of lost profits. Finding that the plaintiff could not meet several of the Panduit factors because, among other things there were acceptable, non-infringing substitutes in the marketplace during the relevant time period, the district court denied plaintiff’s request for lost profits. “As plaintiff has not shown a reasonable probability that it would have made the majority of [defendant’s] sales given the existence of non-infringing switchblade divot repair tools on the market, the Court finds plaintiff has not met its burden in this regard.”

The district court next analyzed whether the plaintiff was entitled to a reasonable royalty. Plaintiff contended that it was entitled to a 20% royalty on the gross profits of defendant’s infringing tools because the patented tools sold by the plaintiff had a high gross profit of 70%, there were few competitors, the tools were an impulse buy because they had a low price, the tools were an effective and low-cost promotional product, they had a unique design and function and the tools were accepted and known in the marketplace. The defendant argued for royalty rate of 5% of net profits.
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As the battle between Oracle and Google approaches nearer to trial, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California has denied Google’s objection to the selection of the pool of jurors who will hear the trial. The district court previously notified Oracle and Google that the district court intended to pre-clear a large number of potential jurors for a multi-month criminal trial and that it intended to use this same pool of potential jurors for the trial between Oracle and Google in the event the criminal trial was postponed. Oracle did not object to the procedure. Google did.

In its objection, Google argued that many potential jurors who would normally be available to serve on a three week trial would have significant personal or professional commitments that would prevent them from serving in a much longer criminal trial. As a result, Google reasoned that the pool cleared for the much longer criminal trial would be less diverse and less representative than a group specifically cleared for a shorter three week trial. In Google’s words, “[t]o maximize the size and diversity of the venire, enhance the [quality] of the jury-selection process, and increase the likelihood that the jury eventually selected will provide the parties with a fair cross section of the community, Google respectfully requests that the Court not use the pre-clearance process.”
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