A Blog About Intellectual Property Litigation and the District of Delaware


Entries for search: McCalla

Danger Keep Out
Edwin Hooper, Unsplash

Earlier this week, visiting Judge McCalla issued an order denying a motion to preclude a third-party factual declaration. Along the way, the Court addressed an ethics rule that should probably come up more often than it does.

As set forth by the Court, ABA Model Rule 3.4(f) precludes attorneys from requesting that third parties withhold relevant information from another party:

Model Rule 3.4(f) states a “lawyer shall not . . . request a person other than a client to refrain from voluntarily giving relevant information to another party.”

Arctic Innovations, LLC v. Edwards Lifesciences Corp., C.A. No. 23-158-JPM, at 4 (D. Del. June 4, 2025).

This could be a land mine for the …

Broken Phone
Laura Rivera, Unsplash

We've written a fair bit about the Court's new personal electronics policy, implemented just over a year ago. We've discussed how to request permission to bring electronics in, the fact that you (probably) don't need to meet-and-confer, and the fact that, if you list too many people, your motion might be denied.

On one level, it seems kind of silly to devote this much attention to the question of whether the people on your team can browse their phones during a hearing. But on another level, it's important and impactful—particularly for trials, it's essential that the team members who are actually doing the work can communicate, pull up exhibits, take notes, and so on. …

This report, produced by the Court, is available on the Court's website. I’d encourage our readers to peruse the full report, but we highlight a few interesting statistics and announcements below.

IP Cases Continue to Dominate the Docket

In 2022, there was an increase in jury trials to 19 in the District of Delaware. Patent/IP cases accounted for 44% of all civil filings in the last 7 years and 43% in 2022 alone.

Pie Chart Delaware Docket
The United States District Court: District of Delaware

Nationally, patent filings decreased from 4,037 filings to 3,854. In the District of Delaware in 2022, 685 patent cases were filed, a 23.04 percent decrease from the previous year of 890. Delaware is second in the nation, after …