A Blog About Intellectual Property Litigation and the District of Delaware


Entries for date: August 2021

Ref
Nathan Shively, Unsplash

We've written several times about the Pennypack factors—the Third Circuit standard for determining whether to exclude late-disclosed evidence. Although the standard itself is fairly lenient (focusing on prejudice and whether it can be cured), the D. Del. judges have shown an increasing willingness to exclude evidence under Pennypack in recent years.

Earlier today, for example, Judge Stark applied Pennypack to preclude four witnesses from testifying at an upcoming jury trial (two from each side). The witnesses were disclosed months after the close of fact discovery, and Judge Stark refused to force the parties to use their limited trial prep time for clean-up discovery: "there is not sufficient time in the 12 remaining days before trial …

Pills
Christina Victoria Craft, Unsplash

Magistrate Judge Hall issued an R&R today recommending that the Court deny a motion to dismiss an inducement claim against a health insurer relating to a method-of-use claim for a generic drug.

The complaint alleges that, despite knowing that the plaintiff had a method-of-use claim for a specific treatment, the insurer nonetheless covered the patented treatment at a lower cost to patients than treatment with the name-brand drug:

The thrust of the allegations against [the insurer] Health Net are (1) that it provides coverage and payment for [co-defendant] Hikma’s generic product even in cases where Health Net actually knows that a particular beneficiary is using the generic version for an unapproved—and allegedly infringing . . …

Science!
Hans Reniers, Unsplash

On Friday, Judge Andrews issued an opinion adopting a Special Master opinion, which held that certain pre-litigation testing documents were not covered by attorney privilege.

Pre-Litigation Testing Not Protected by Attorney-Client Privilege If Not Provided to Attorneys

The Court found that the pre-litigation scientific testing was not covered by attorney-client privilege, even though they may have been done "at the direction of" a law firm, because the core purpose was for the client's understanding rather than for facilitating legal advice:

I do not think [plaintiff] First Quality has shown that the attorney-client privilege applies to any of the [relevant] disputed . . . documents. Plaintiff's position is that everything [the expert] Dr. Malburg did falls "well …