Judge Andrews had a fun opinion yesterday on an issue that does not come up very much at all.
The plaintiff in Pioneer Hi-Bred Int'l Inc. v. Syngenta Seeds, LLC, C.A. No. 22-1280-RGA (D. Del. Mar. 19, 2025) dropped their infringement claims after claim construction. Rather than dismissing the case, they moved for partial summary judgment and asked Judge Andrews to enter final judgment so that they could appeal the otherwise dispositive Markman order.
The defendant, however, wanted to proceed to an invalidity trial, and thus opposed the entry of a final judgment. Judge Andrews declined to enter final judgment, noting that allowing appeal now could lead to piecemeal appeals:
The entry of final judgment issue involves a discretionary decision on my part. In my opinion, the most significant factor is that Plaintiff proposes what would in effect be a classic piecemeal appeal. It wants to bring one claim construction issue before the Court of Appeals. All other decisions to date, including any of the other claim constructions, would be reserved for a potential second appeal. It is true that if Plaintiff were to lose on the first appeal, there would be no second appeal. On the other hand, if Plaintiff were to win on the first appeal, all that would be decided is one claim construction issue. Resolving the issue would not, so far as I can tell, lead to the resolution of any other issue in the case.
Id. at 2.
In doing so, he distinguished his earlier decision in Viatech Tech. Inc. v. Microsoft Corp., 2017 WL 2538570, at *9 (D. Del. June 12, 2025), where he had entered final judgment and dismissed the invalidity claims as moot "because proceeding to a jury trial [on only invalidity] would be inefficient and wasteful."
Apparently, the difference in that case was that the parties had both requested the trial be taken off the calendar if summary judgment was entered:
Shortly before I issued that opinion [in Viatech], I had told the parties that I intended to grant summary judgment of noninfringement, and, before I issued the opinion, the parties jointly asked that I take the upcoming trial off the calendar. I interpreted that letter as indicating neither party wanted a trial if I granted summary judgment of noninfringement.
Id. at 3
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