It's important to pay attention to the things the Court tells you at the scheduling conference.
At a scheduling conference in Koninklijke Philips N.V. v. Quectel Wireless Solutions Co. Ltd., C.A. No. 20-1707-CFC-CJB (D. Del.), back in September, 2025, the Court set a date for the Markman hearing, and emphasized the importance of experts being there:
So let's do the Markman February 10th at 9:00 a.m. Now, I'm telling you now, you should have your experts prepared to be there.
Id., D.I. 141 at 2.
In the lead up to the conference, however, one party heard from its expert that he was unavailable for the hearing due to a recently scheduled trial in another action. Id. They asked the Court to move the hearing date, arguing that it would be "highly prejudicial" for the Court to hear expert testimony from only one side.
Chief Judge Connolly denied the request to reschedule the hearing, noting that the Court had warned the parties about this very issue:
I scheduled the Markman hearing during a September 9, 2025 scheduling conference with the parties. I said at the time: "So let's do the Markman February 10th at 9:00 a.m. Now, I'm telling you now, you should have your experts prepared to be there." . . . Philips did not object to that date or my comment about experts being prepared to be at the Markman hearing.
According to Philips, [the expert] told it on January 14, 2026 that he learned on January 13, 2026 that he "is needed to testify" in an Eastern District of Texas case. . . . The docket for the Eastern District case shows that Judge Gilstrap scheduled the February 6, 2026 trial in that case on January 7, 2026. . . . The docket does not suggest, and Philips does not allege, that anyone told Judge Gilstrap about the Markman hearing scheduled in these cases.
As the parties have previously acknowledged, managing FRAND and standards cases like these two cases is very challenging. Delaying the Markman hearing is not feasible given that challenge and the Court's docket and calendar. Any prejudice Philips might suffer because of [the expert]'s absence from the Markman hearing will not be unfair as it will have been caused by Philips and/or [the expert] and no one else.
Id. at 2-3.
Honestly, scheduling with experts can be tough. They tend to be busy people, often with teaching schedules, professional commitments, and other cases. Sometimes you really have to keep on them to avoid situations like this.
I still remember one panic-inducing instance when, years ago, I called an expert witness to talk about an upcoming trial, and he responded "Oh, I forgot to tell you, we'll need to reschedule that because I agreed to teach a semester in Israel at that time." Luckily, after I picked myself up off the floor and discussed it with him, we worked something out (and the case ended up settling anyway, for unrelated reasons).
Experts are, obviously, absolutely critical in IP cases. You really have to stay on top of them when it comes to scheduling.
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