A Blog About Intellectual Property Litigation and the District of Delaware


Entries for search: Bataillon

Common Interesting Issue

Nathan R. Hoeschen, Sept. 6, 2022
Common Interest Privilege

You can see in Oreo's eyes that he does not share a common interest with the toddler
You can see in Oreo's eyes that he does not share a common interest with the toddler __-drz-__, Unsplash

Judge Bataillon just issued an eminently cite-able opinion on the scope of the common interest privilege—an issue that comes up quite a bit in the district, but is notoriously hard to pin down.

What makes this case—Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft Zur Forderung der angewandten Forschung e.V. v. Sirius XM Radio Inc., C.A. No. 17-184 (D. Del. Sept. 2, 2022) (Mem. and Order)—so useful is that the plaintiff and its alleged common interest BFF had three separate agreements which were executed at different times. This, in turn, allowed the Court to neatly lay out where along the chain of agreements the common interest privilege attached.

NDA Is Not Enough

All three agreements between Fraunhofer and IPXI (the aforementioned BFF) centered on licensing the patents in suit. The first such agreement was a non-disclosure agreement executed by both parties while they were discussing the possibility of a licensing agreement. The Court found this agreement insufficient to create any common interest privilege, noting that "An NDA does not create legal obligations beyond nondisclosure." Id. at 5. As noted in the Magistrate Judge's Order ...

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Danged If You Do, Danged If You Don't, Danged If You Sort-Of Do And Sort Of Don't

Nathan R. Hoeschen, June 6, 2023
Claim Construction

In almost every case I have as a defendant, there's a moment around claim construction when I'm just sure I've got the plaintiff dead to rights. Under one construction, there's no infringement—under the other, the patent's invalid. I've just gotta turn the crank on the vise until those conniving jerks pop.

I had a different picture here before but it was . . . pretty dark
I had a different picture here before but it was . . . pretty dark AI-Generated, displayed with permission

More often than not, however, this insoluble dilemma dissolves and I'm left cranking air.

It was thus with noticeable relish that I read Judge Bataillon's post-trial opinion in CR Bard Inc. v. AngioDynamics Inc. C.A. No. 1-15-218-JFB-SRF (D. Del. June 1, 2023)—where this spring was finally sprung.

The trap was—weirdly—in the term "suitable." The patents claimed a method for identifying a medical injection port as one of those "suitable" for high pressure applications such as CT scans (as well as apparatuses for doing the same). Apparently, the wrong sort of ports will explode if you use them for CT scans, so it's important for the doctor to know which kind you have.

The issue that came to the fore at trial was whether a "suitable" port was one that was ...

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Court Rejects Parties' Request to Change Trial Scope After Fed. Cir. Vacates Previous Trial Result

Andrew E. Russell, Sept. 26, 2022
Trial Motion in Limine

Chart

Procedural opinions about post-appeal trials are relatively rare, at least compared to the amount of decisions on motions to dismiss or summary judgment that we see. Most cases settle long before they reach this stage. So I thought it was worth posting about how Judge Bataillon handled a new trial in C R Bard Inc. v AngioDynamics, Inc., C.A. No. 15-218-JFB-SRF (D. Del.) after the Federal Circuit vacated the result of the previous trial.

The parties in the case sought to introduce new information in the new trial, including at least one accused product that was released after the previous trial. The Court rejected that idea, holding that the new trial would be a direct repeat of …

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Court Refuses to Allow Expert to Evade Adverse Construction Via Doctrine of Equivalents

Andrew E. Russell, July 21, 2021
DOE Daubert

Yesterday, visiting Judge Bataillon excluded a patentee's expert opinion where the expert tried to use the doctrine of equivalents to skirt the Court's construction of a term.

The Court had initially rejected a preliminary injunction motion by the patentee, holding that it had failed to show a likelihood of success on infringement based on its proposed claim construction.

The patentee then proposed the same construction during claim construction before the magistrate judge, who issued an R&R rejecting it.

The patentee then objected to the R&R, but the Court adopted the construction in the R&R and again rejected the patentee's proposed construction.

Specifically, the Court held that the claims required two elements that each have a different thickness and composition: …

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Highlights from the United States District Court District of Delaware Annual Report 2023

Emily DiBenedetto, Aug. 25, 2023

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 …
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What a Successful Equitable Estoppel Defense Looks Like

Andrew E. Russell, July 13, 2023
Equitable Estoppel Affirmative Defenses

I imagine a poor Sirius XM Radio satellite, drifting listlessly through space with nothing to do after 3G and smart phones ate its business model.
I imagine a poor Sirius XM Radio satellite, drifting listlessly through space with nothing to do after 3G and smart phones ate its business model. SpaceX, Unsplash

In answering patent infringement complaints, defendants often do their best to throw in any potentially supportable equitable estoppel / implied license defense they can think of. But in patent actions, these defenses can be hard to prove and are rarely successful. They typically drop off at some point later in the case.

This week we got a great example of what a successful equitable estoppel defense looks like, in an opinion from Judge Bataillon granting summary judgment on that basis.

Basically, it involved lots of incredibly strong facts.

The defendant is Sirius …

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Where Have All The Ca-a-a-ses Gone?

Nathan R. Hoeschen, March 17, 2022

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 …
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Judge Fallon: No New § 101 Theories After Ineligibility Determination Reversed by Federal Circuit

Andrew E. Russell, March 1, 2022
JMOL FRCP 50(a)

Disappointment Ice Cream
Sarah Kilian, Unsplash

Back in 2019, the parties in C.R. Bard, Inc. v. AngioDynamics, Inc., C.A. 15-218-JFB-SRF (D. Del.) went to trial on infringement claims for a patent involving a "means of identification" of certain medical devices.

During trial, at the close of plaintiffs' case, visiting Judge Bataillon granted an oral FRCP 50(a) motion for JMOL for the defendant (wow!), finding that the patent was ineligible as directed to an abstract idea involving labeling and printed matter.

The Federal Circuit later reversed, holding that the claims were patent eligible. Defendant then sought rehearing en banc, arguing that the panel's determination that the claims were patent eligible would cut off its ability to present other ineligibility arguments …

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Request to Stay Discovery Ruling Pending Objections Denied

Jeff Castellano, Oct. 22, 2021
Magistrate Judges Stay

A few days ago, Magistrate Judge Fallon denied a request to stay her discovery ruling pending the losing party's objections and review by the District Judge. Defendant SXM in Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft Zur Forderung der angewandten Forschung e.V. v. Sirius XM Radio Inc., C.A. No. 17-184-JFB-SRF asked Judge Fallon to follow the parties' "agreed-upon practice" to stay discovery rulings pending objections, a practice the parties had apparently followed in two prior instances.

Or not.
Or not. Erik McLean, Unsplash

On October 7, Judge Fallon ordered that the plaintiff's experts should have access to defendant SXM's confidential information. About a week later, the parties submitted a letter setting forth their respective positions on whether the discovery ruling should be stayed.

Judge Fallon declined to stay her ruling. She noted that...

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