A Blog About Intellectual Property Litigation and the District of Delaware


Entries for date: September 2022

Attorney searching for factual support for their inequitable conduct allegations
Attorney searching for factual support for their inequitable conduct allegations Agence Olloweb, Unsplash

Yesterday, in Intercept Pharmaceuticals v. Apotex Inc., C.A. No. 20-1105-MN (D. Del. Sept. 1, 2022), Judge Hall granted a motion to amend to add inequitable conduct allegations almost a year after the deadline for amendment in the scheduling order.

Most D. Del. scheduling orders include a deadline for motions to amend or to join additional parties. Normally, the standard for motions to amend in the Third Circuit is relatively easy to meet. But when there is a scheduling order deadline for amendment, the Courts has held that parties must show "good cause" under Rule 16 if they move to amend after the …

Jane Almon, Unsplash

It's not often that there's a consequence to objecting to an exhibit in the pretrial order. The common wisdom is that it's better to be safe than sorry, so pretty much every exhibit gets some sort of objection—at least at the PTO stage. Of course, many of these objections are abandoned come trial following a series of interminable meet and confers between the least senior members of each trial team. The system works.

Usually. Sometimes, one objection too many can cost you $6,000,000.

A Common Problem Made Worse By COVID

As often happens in cases between competitors, the defendants in Sunoco Partners Marketing Terminals L.P. v. Powder Springs Logistics, LLC, (yes, we're talking about this one …