A Blog About Intellectual Property Litigation and the District of Delaware


Entries for search: Wolson

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 …

This guy knows how to go to trial
This guy knows how to go to trial Henry Hustava

Just a blog service announcement: We'll be going on a bit of a blogging hiatus for the next week or two. Our firm handled a trial last week before Judge Andrews as local counsel, and we're set for three simultaneous trials this week before Judges Connolly, Andrews, and Noreika. Then we have yet another trial the week after, before visiting Judge Wolson.

If you're adding them up, that's five trials in three weeks as local counsel! So we're up to our necks in prep work, with about a dozen visiting co-counsel and staff using our offices as trial space, and we're going to have to slow down a bit on …

Buffalo
Andrew E. Russell, CC BY 2.0

If you're invested enough in Delaware litigation to be reading this blog, you will be aware that Judge Stark is slated to leave us soon, and the district has set forth some guidance on what will happen to his cases when he departs. The Court has been reassigning Judge Stark's cases in batches since the beginning of February, and I have arbitrarily decided (because its Friday) that today we have enough data to do a quick rundown of where the cases are going.

As of today, the Court has transferred a mere 26 of Judge Stark's patent cases (counting related cases as a single case),whichhave been distributed as follows:

  • 7 - Judge Noreika …

Masks
Isaac Quesada, Unsplash

February Jury Trials

After completing all planned December jury trials uninterrupted by COVID-19, the January docket became lighter after the Court continued several trial dates to later this year due to COVID-19 concerns. One of these continued trials, a patent case, was rescheduled to February; the Court also has three other jury trials on the calendar for next month.

In December, the Court reauthorized the use of video and telephone conferencing pursuant to the CARES Act. Relatedly, Governor Carney reinstituted a mask mandate, requiring individuals in Delaware to wear masks while in public spaces, with select exceptions.

Review of December Jury Trials

In our November update, we identified five upcoming December jury trials. Three proceeded as …