A Blog About Intellectual Property Litigation and the District of Delaware


Entries for date: November 2025

Sir, is this
Sir, is this "complex technology" requiring an expert? Nah British Library, Unsplash

As we laid out in Friday's post, there was a hearing today in Rein Tech, Inc. v. Mueller Systems, LLC, C.A. No. 18-1683-MN (D. Del.) regarding another potential protective order violation. The defendant in Rein alleged that the inventor (who has seen AEO information) has continued to prosecute another patent application in the same field, despite the prosecution bar in the Court's protective order.

Update on Today's Hearing

The Court opened the hearing today by announcing that it intended to grant the defendant's SJ motion of non-infringement. Shortly thereafter, counsel for the patentee informed the Court that the patentee is now willing to …

Summary Judgment and Daubert briefs are often sprawling, slothful beasts. They shift from issue to issue lodging complaints both specific and general over the course of many pages and exhibits.

Rude...
Rude... NOAA, Unsplash

Accordingly, it can be hard parse which arguments are actually being pressed and require a response.

Today's case is a sobering reminder of the consequences of missing one.

The plaintiff's opening Daubert brief in Magnolia Med. Techs., Inc. v. Kurin, Inc., C.A. No. 24-1124-CFC, consisted of 18 pages complaining about how the defendant's invalidity report was "devoid of any analysis or detail and fails at baseline to even map the prior art to the claim elements or explain what combination or modification of the prior art …

[Update: The hearing below has moved to 2:00pm today in Courtroom 4B (not 4A)]

Fireworks, n.,
Fireworks, n., "a display of temper or intense conflict" (per Merriam-Webster.com) Moritz Mentges, Unsplash

Over the summer, we posted twice about an interesting hearing in Rein Tech, Inc. v. Mueller Systems, LLC, C.A. No. 18-1683-MN (D. Del.).

In the first post, we discussed how the Court sanctioned a party for misusing information that was designated under a protective order. In the second, we talked about how the defendant cleverly used PDF metadata to help show that the protective order violation took place.

Since then, the case has continued moving forward towards trial. It is set for a pretrial conference on …

Wave
Jeremy Bishop, Unsplash

Last week, Judge Bryson ruled on a motion in limine where an accused infringer sought to strike the patentee's alleged "new theory" of validity just before trial or, in the alternative, for a permission to raise a new claim construction regarding that theory.

The Court ultimately denied the motion in limine because the accused infringer was on notice of the theory, but granted its alternative motion for permission to raise a new claim construction position regarding the theory, citing O2 Micro.

The Accused Infringer Was On Notice of the Issue

The Court easily denied the motion to strike, finding seven different ways that the accused infringer either was or should have been aware of the …