A Blog About Intellectual Property Litigation and the District of Delaware


Entries for tag: Claim Narrowing

Refusal to Narrow the Number of Asserted Claims Results in Reduced Relief in Narrowing Invalidity Contentions

Emily DiBenedetto, April 25, 2022
Claim Narrowing Contentions

Upturned Nose
Zayn Shah, Unsplash

As we’ve said before, sufficiency of each parties’ contentions can vary a bit by judge, and holdings are difficult to research because they usually appear in discovery dispute teleconference transcripts that are not posted to the dockets.

However, we saw a written decision issued by Judge Burke last week that illuminated one of the Court’s potential approaches to a dispute over invalidity contentions. The Court proposed that, if Plaintiff would agree to narrow its claims, the Court would require defendants to reduce the number of combinations. When Plaintiffs refused, they still received relief, but it wasn’t as strong or as specific as the relief they might have gotten had they adopted the Court’s proposal.

Plaintiffs complained that Defendants’ response to a contention interrogatory was unduly vague and insufficiently fulsome. The interrogatory sought invalidity contentions under § 103 obviousness, and the response incorporated Defendants’ Joint Initial Invalidity Contentions, so the Court focused on the Initial Invalidity Contention document itself for its analysis.

The Court found that the Initial Invalidity Contentions were sufficient in most respects:

In general, they provide real detail, including significant specificity as to ...
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Claims Return From Dead in Harrowing New Action!

Nathan R. Hoeschen, Feb. 3, 2022
Claim Narrowing

Clllaaiiiimmmmss!!!! claaaaiiiiiimmmmssss!!!
Clllaaiiiimmmmss!!!! claaaaiiiiiimmmmssss!!! An old asylum near Berlin, Nathan Wright, Unsplash

When the Court orders a patentee to reduce the number of asserted claims -- what happens to the ones that are dropped? Are they truly gone, or might they still maintain some sort of cursed half life -- banished from the case yet hungering to be asserted anew?

As we've discussed in the past, patentees will often argue that due process requires they be allowed to assert each of their claims, regardless of the Court's case management concerns. Since, however, a patentee maintains only their best claims, the issue typically becomes moot before it prompts an opinion squarely addressing the due-process issue.

Fortunately (for bloggers) the issue came to a head in Vaxcel Int'l Co. Ltd. v. HeathCo LLC, C.A. No. 20-224-LPS, D.I. 122 (D. Del. Feb. 2, 2022). There, Judge Stark had ordered the plaintiff to reduce its asserted claims down to 21 (from 167 initially asserted). Id., D.I. 48. After this narrowing, Judge Stark held several of the remaining claims invalid for indefiniteness. The plaintiff thus sought to replace the invalidated claims with ones that it had previously jettisoned (that allegedly lacked the indefiniteness problem).

Noting that the narrowing order stated that it would be modified only for "good cause," Judge Stark found that it was lacking here, especially in light of the fast approaching close of fact discovery. ...

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Judge Stark Declined to Limit a Plaintiff to Fewer than 27 Asserted Claims for a Jury Trial

Andrew E. Russell, Aug. 16, 2021
Claim Narrowing Case Narrowing

Narrows
Karan Chawla, Unsplash

Case narrowing is an issue that eventually comes up in most patent cases—the idea that each party should have to reduce the number of claims and prior art references at points during the case.

How Claim Narrowing Usually Goes in a Patent Action

If parties want to avoid a dispute down the line, they can include case narrowing in the scheduling order. More often, however, it comes up at some point after the plaintiffs makes its initial election of asserted claims, and the parties start to get an understanding of the scope of the case.

Typically the initial narrowing occurs before claim construction, and a second round occurs afterwards, sometimes around the time of final contentions. …

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Chief Judge Connolly Trims Claims and Defenses Before Trial

David M. Fry, July 7, 2021
Trial Claim Narrowing

Scissors
Markus Winkler, Unsplash

A few months ago, we wrote about claim narrowing in patent cases, noting that Delaware judges will often set additional limits when a case reaches trial. Because this typically comes up during the pretrial conference, there is often no written record on the docket.

Last Thursday, however, Chief Judge Connolly issued a rare, written order requiring the parties to narrow their claims and defenses before trial:

ORAL ORDER: Per today's call, it is HEREBY ORDERED that the pretrial conference will be held on July 27, 2021, and the trial will be held on August 2, 2021. Plaintiff shall identify for Defendant no later than 5:00 p.m. on July 7, 2021 no more than two patents and …
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Judge Andrews Allows Amended Complaint, but Orders Immediate Claim Narrowing

David M. Fry, March 10, 2021
Claim Narrowing

The first part of this headline is no surprise. As long as a motion to amend is filed before the deadline in the scheduling order, it's very hard to lose. In fact, Judge Andrews didn't even issue a written opinion on this one (another plug for the importance of monitoring oral orders in D. Del.):

I do not see undue delay, and Defendant basically concedes that any prejudice can be pretty easily ameliorated. The Court is not concerned about the prospect of a five-day trial with seven patents from seven families. That scenario will never come to pass.

The surprising part is what happened next. After dismissing the defendant's concerns, Judge Andrews ordered the plaintiffs to narrow their …

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A Play in Which Lawyers Argue About What an "Argument" Is

Nathan R. Hoeschen, Feb. 22, 2021
Claim Narrowing

Continuing in the vein of last week's discussion of claim narrowing, Judge Andrews issued an interesting opinion on Friday discussing the number of invalidity arguments a defendant was allowed to present at trial.

Although we still occasionally see orders in the district limiting the number of prior art references a defendant is allowed to assert, it has become increasingly common in recent years to see the Court limit the number of prior art arguments or combinations or defenses an accused infringer can assert -- either instead of, or in addition to, a set number of references.

The question of how to count "arguments" has generated a fair amount of opinions in the district, with slightly varying results. Judge Burke gave …

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Claim Narrowing in Patent Cases: Some Data on Limits on Asserted Claims and Prior Art References

Andrew E. Russell, Feb. 15, 2021
Contentions KB

Case narrowing is an issue that comes up in most patent cases at some point, whether in the scheduling order, as a discovery dispute, or at the pretrial conference (or, possibly, all three).

Average amount of prior art references each defendant seeks to assert.
Average amount of prior art references each defendant seeks to assert. Cristina Gottardi, Unsplash

When requested, judges in Delaware typically implement an initial two-stage reduction in asserted claims and prior art references, with the first stage occurring before claim construction, and the second afterward.

Of course, sometimes they will implement other schedules depending on the needs of the case and the requests of the parties. And, for cases that reach a pretrial conference, the Court often imposes an additional limit on the number of claims for …

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No Reasserting Dropped Claims Without Good Cause, Says Judge Andrews

Jeff Castellano, Nov. 3, 2020
Claim Narrowing Case Narrowing

In the most recent entry in the case narrowing saga in IPA Techs., Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 16-1266-RGA (previously covered here and here), Judge Andrews addressed defendant Amazon's objection to the reassertion of previously dropped claims.

Earlier this year, Judge Andrews directed IPA to reduce its asserted claims to 30, and it did. Subsequently, nearly half of its asserted claims were invalidated in an IPR. Plaintiff IPA, no longer asserting the invalidated claims, then added (or "reasserted") seven of the previously dropped claims in place of the invalidated claims.

Amazon opposed the addition of the new claims because fact discovery was nearly complete and because it had crafted its invalidity case with the 30 asserted claims in …

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This Is Why People Hate Having to Assert Prior Art Systems as References

Andrew E. Russell, Oct. 26, 2020
Claim Narrowing Contentions

Ok, maybe not all people, and not all of the time. But in ranking the kinds of prior art I'd like to be able to assert against a tech patent, off of the top of my head, I'd rank system references pretty low:

  1. A U.S. Patent: Simple and easy.
  2. A foreign patent: Proving authenticity and publication is usually easy (but sometimes not).
  3. A journal publication: You may have to jump through some hoops, but no big deal.
  4. A Wayback Machine reference: Now one of those hoops is waiting (and waiting...) for a declaration through the Internet Archive's procedures. But it's not hard to get.
  5. A book. Now you may be dealing with librarian declarations.
  6. . . . …
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Sometimes a Motion for More Pages Is More than Just a Motion for More Pages

Nathan R. Hoeschen, Oct. 22, 2020
Page Limits Claim Narrowing

Litigant requesting
Litigant requesting "extra pages" Belinda Fewings, Unsplash

This week saw the birth of a novel way to raise a claim narrowing dispute, and it strikes me as rather clever.

Typically the number of claims asserted gets raised as a discovery dispute or as part of the scheduling or status conference.

The plaintiff in TQ Delta, LLC v. Pace Americas, LLC, C.A. No. 13-1835-RGA (D. Del.), though, took a different tack and instead moved for extra pages for summary judgment briefing, explaining that it needed the extra pages because the defendant was asserting 18 invalidity defenses (against plaintiff's 2 asserted claims).

This resulted in the following turn of events:

  • Judge Andrews immediately issued an Oral Order requesting defendant …
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