A Blog About Intellectual Property Litigation and the District of Delaware


Entries for tag: License

Secrets, Secrets Are Sooooo Fun!

Nathan R. Hoeschen, May 6, 2025
Standing Trade Secret Misappropriation

AI-Generated, displayed with permission

Earlier this week, Judge Burke unsealed an opinion on what appears to be an issue of first impression for the district.

Biohaven Therapeutics LTD v. Avilar Therapeutics, Inc., C.A. No. 23-328-JLH-CJB (D. Del. Apr. 10, 2025) (R&R) is a trade secret case where the plaintiffs alleged that the defendants ... stole ... their trade ... secrets. The issue was that one of the plaintiffs, Biohaven, only had a non-exclusive license to the alleged trade secrets and thus defendant argued that they lacked standing to assert them.

Unlike in patent law, where dense treatises have been written about which types of license confer standing, the question of whether a bare non-exclusive license …

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All Promises Are Traps

Nathan R. Hoeschen, April 8, 2025
Stipulation License

(Eds. note—my therapist (an avid reader of the blog) tells me that the title of this post is inaccurate and indicative of an "unhelpful" worldview.)

(Second Eds. Note—My therapist has asked that I not quote her in the blog. Apparently it "demeans us both.")

Amie Roussel, Unsplash

What can you do.

Today's tale is of a stipulation, born of hope and an honest desire to streamline a case, that ended in acrimony and pain.

The parties in Roger P. Jackson, M.D. v. NuVasive, Inc., C.A. No. 21-53-RGA, D.I. 431 (D. Del. Feb 21, 2025), had long ago stipulated to several representative products for the purposes of infringement and invalidity across an otherwise vast swath of accused …

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Whoops! "Good Faith" Belief in Opposing Party's Breach of Settlement Agreement Insufficient to Permit New Patent Suit

Andrew E. Russell, Dec. 4, 2024
Breach of Contract Settlement Agreements

This suit did not go as planned.
This suit did not go as planned. Kyriacos Georgiou, Unsplash

Judge Andrews issued an interesting opinion on opposing summary judgment motions yesterday in Takeda Pharmaceuticals U.S.A., Inc. v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc., C.A. No. 19-2216-RGA (D. Del.).

The parties settled a patent infringement suit years ago in a way that permitted the defendant to nonetheless launch its drug product if the patent claims were asserted against a third party and found invalid or not infringed.

Some of the claims were asserted against a third party and held invalid or not infringed, and the defendant launched. The plaintiff disagreed that this permitted launch. It sued the defendant for breach of contract and, critically, for patent infringement.

Last year, …

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License Offers Excluded for Thee but Not for Me

Andrew E. Russell, April 29, 2024
Damages MILs

License for Thee
AI-Generated, displayed with permission

Maybe it's just me, but pre-trial evidentiary opinions are always fun to read. They often involve rules that don't come up in other written opinions, and all of the rulings tend to be highly impactful for trial (otherwise the parties wouldn't be spending their extremely limited pre-trial time and MILs on the issues).

We got an opinion from Judge Bryson last week on pre-trial evidentiary issues in Acceleration Bay LLC v. Activision Blizzard Inc., C.A. No. 16-453-WCB (D. Del. Apr. 28, 2024). There are a number of interesting rulings in it, but one in particular that is worth calling out involved whether a party can offer evidence of past licenses to prove damages. …

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