In CogniPower LLC v. Fantasia Trading LLC, d/b/a AnderDirect, C.A. No. 19-2293-JLH-SRF (D. Del.), a patent suit, the Court granted a third-party supplier's motion to intervene back in 2020. Since then, based on the docket, the patentee has been trying to dismiss the intervenor from the case.
Today, the Court issued its order denying a motion to dismiss by the patentee, and it addresses to interesting issues regarding an effort to limit the scope of the Court's judgment based on subject matter jurisdiction.
First, the patentee tried to dismiss the claims based on an argument that, five years after the initial complaint, the third-party supplier is no longer the "sole" supplier of the chips used in the accused products.
You may be thinking "why would that matter for subject matter jurisdiction?" (I was). It looks like the Court felt the same way, holding that it makes no difference whether the supplier is the sole supplier or just one of multiple suppliers:
In its second motion, CogniPower argues that, “[r]egardless of whether a justiciable controversy existed when [the third-party supplier] PI first moved to intervene and file its counterclaims on August 17, 2020, . . . circumstances have changed.” . . . Notwithstanding the fact that “CogniPower has told at least one existing [PI] customer that CogniPower’s patents ‘can be mapped to any power converter containing any [PI] InnoSwitch controller [chip]’” . . . CogniPower argues that there is no longer a justiciable controversy between it and PI because PI is no longer the sole supplier of the controller chips used in Defendant Anker’s products. I disagree. The fact that Anker power converters containing non-PI chips exist in the universe does not affect the Court’s conclusion that there is a justiciable dispute between PI and CogniPower.
CogniPower LLC v. Fantasia Trading LLC, d/b/a AnderDirect, C.A. No. 19-2293-JLH-SRF, at 1 (D. Del. July 16, 2025).
The patentee argued in the alternative that the Court should limit the scope of the case to just "the accused Anker products using [the supplier's chips]." The Court declined that as well, noting that a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction is the wrong way to present that argument:
The Court rejects CogniPower’s “alternative” request to “limit” PI’s declaratory judgment claims “to the accused Anker products using PI chips.”[1] . . . Even if a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction were the appropriate procedural mechanism to make that argument (it is not), the scope of any declaratory judgment ultimately issued by the Court will be determined based on the pleadings, the parties’ timely disclosed contentions in discovery, and the evidence presented at trial. And the Court declines to weigh in on any additional preclusive effect its judgment might have on a proceeding in Texas (which is for that court to decide).
[1] PI contends that “[t]he real purpose of CogniPower’s motion is to prevent PI from obtaining a judgment that helps its customer Samsung in CogniPower’s second-filed case pending in Texas.” (D.I. 178 at 7.)
Id. at 2. This argument is a lot easier to understand. On the surface, they sought a preemptive ruling that any judgment of the Court's as to the supplier can't reach products that do not use that supplier's chips, which seems obviously correct. But they may really have wanted a ruling that any judgment cannot address whether the supplier's chips practice the claims, to preserve their ability to pursue their other actions against products using those chips—which is not so obviously true.
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