About a month ago we put the blog on hold for our storm of impending trials. Some of those ultimately resolved or moved, and we still have a couple coming up in the next five weeks. But, for now, we're starting the blog up again.
We have a back log of interesting things to address—starting with a post today about Judge Hall's views on summary judgment ranking and page limits. Enjoy!
We here at IP/DE are all practicing attorneys. We try to keep up with around one post per day, but sometimes we have to hang up the gone fishin' sign.
This is one of those times. We have a two-week-long patent trial starting next week, two simultaneous one-week trials shortly thereafter, and we're also spinning up on pretrial disclosures for yet another after that. It's funny how they seem to come all at once.
In short, it's time to call it for now. Assuming we survive—see you soon!
Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all! We'll be taking a break from posts for a bit as, historically, activity has been slow for the week between Christmas and New Year's. We'll see you in 2024!
Happy thanksgiving, all! We won't have posts for the rest of this week. If you're in the U.S., enjoy the holiday!
Don't forget to check your calendars for any deadlines set for this Friday. Even though the District of Delaware will be closed, deadlines may or may not automatically move to Monday (depending on whether, for example, they are set to a date certain in a scheduling order).
Last week, I began receiving reports that the blog was sometimes inaccessible over the network at the District of Delaware courthouse—not a great look for a blog about IP litigation in Delaware with readers who regularly practice there.
I believe we've resolved the issue, but please let me know if it comes back!
As I mentioned in our other post today, the District Court's mediation program has filled the need for local patent mediators until recently. But with the suspension of that program, it occurs to me that it might be helpful for us all to have a list of currently-practicing patent mediators in the District of Delaware who may be helpful when some of the usual suspects are conflicted or unavailable.
So if you have patent, IP, or complex commercial cases in the District of Delaware and feel comfortable sharing who you've been using as mediators (anonymously or otherwise), or if you are a practiced mediator yourself and want to get your name out there, send me an e-mail.
If enough people share names, I'll do a post with those names and some of the others we've used or considered.
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 …
Last month, we took a look at how the different judges handle indefiniteness at Markman, a question that comes up a lot.
We reported that every judge will hear argument about indefiniteness issues at Markman. But in the Judge Connolly specific section, we noted that he has never held a term indefinite in a Markman opinion, and has instead deferred ruling on the issue until summary judgment (citing two examples). See the full post for details.
Yesterday, at a hearing, Judge Connolly mentioned a blog post and stated that the post was incorrect in suggesting that he considers indefiniteness at Markman. He clarified that he does not permit indefiniteness argument at Markman. Instead, he might entertain early …
