A Blog About Intellectual Property Litigation and the District of Delaware


Entries for date: November 2024

ChatGPT comes through again...
ChatGPT comes through again... AI-Generated, displayed with permission

At the FCBA's 2024 Bench and Bar, some of the speakers mentioned that referrals to visiting judges referrals to should be slowing. I've noticed that that seems to be correct — it feels like there have been fewer referrals to visiting judges lately.

Some basic Docket Navigator searches seem to confirm it. I found zero new referrals to visiting judges in the last three months (not counting related-case referrals). That's the longest gap we've had this year, after batches of visiting referrals in January, February, April, July, and on August 1. But Docket Navigator also says that there were even longer gaps last year, including one from January - May and another …

The apparent state of the patentee's case after the Court's decision.
The apparent state of the patentee's case after the Court's decision. Jason Mavrommatis, Unsplash

Before you get too excited, defendants, this case involved a scheduling order using Judge Connolly's form, which provides only a single round of infringement and invalidity contentions, and explicitly requires good cause to amend.

Most District of Delaware scheduling orders include two rounds of contentions (initial and final), with the second round typically coming around the close of fact discovery. It is unlikely to be as difficult to amend in cases like those.

Regardless, I thought this was an interesting result worthy of a post. In Cognipower LLC v. Fantasia Trading, LLC, C.A. No. 19-2293-JLH-SRF (D. Del.), the Court stayed the case …