Just a quick update: The potentially interesting Rein Tech hearing we flagged on Monday is now set to begin at 2pm today, rather than 4:30pm, and it will now be in Courtroom 4B.
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Summary Judgment and Daubert briefs are often sprawling, slothful beasts. They shift from issue to issue lodging complaints both specific and general over the course of many pages and exhibits.
Accordingly, it can be hard parse which arguments are actually being pressed and require a response.
Today's case is a sobering reminder of the consequences of missing one.
The plaintiff's opening Daubert brief in Magnolia Med. Techs., Inc. v. Kurin, Inc., C.A. No. 24-1124-CFC, consisted of 18 pages complaining about how the defendant's invalidity report was "devoid of any analysis or detail and fails at baseline to even map the prior art to the claim elements or explain what combination or modification of the prior art …
[Update: The hearing below has moved to 2:00pm today in Courtroom 4B (not 4A)]
Over the summer, we posted twice about an interesting hearing in Rein Tech, Inc. v. Mueller Systems, LLC, C.A. No. 18-1683-MN (D. Del.).
In the first post, we discussed how the Court sanctioned a party for misusing information that was designated under a protective order. In the second, we talked about how the defendant cleverly used PDF metadata to help show that the protective order violation took place.
Since then, the case has continued moving forward towards trial. It is set for a pretrial conference on …
Last week, Judge Bryson ruled on a motion in limine where an accused infringer sought to strike the patentee's alleged "new theory" of validity just before trial or, in the alternative, for a permission to raise a new claim construction regarding that theory.
The Court ultimately denied the motion in limine because the accused infringer was on notice of the theory, but granted its alternative motion for permission to raise a new claim construction position regarding the theory, citing O2 Micro.
The Accused Infringer Was On Notice of the Issue
The Court easily denied the motion to strike, finding seven different ways that the accused infringer either was or should have been aware of the …
It can take quite a while to resolve summary judgment motions. In essentially every patent case they take up hundreds of pages of briefing accompanied by hundreds more pages of declarations, reports, and exhibits on the most arcane technical matters.
For this reason, all of our Article III judges' form scheduling orders (except Judge Andrews) explicitly instruct the parties to leave 3 or 4 months (3 for Judge Connolly, 4 for the remainder) between the close of briefing and the pretrial conference.
Because a modern patent trial tends to involve a great deal of back and forth on exhibit lists, designations, statements of facts, etc., the pretrial order is usually prepared -- or …
When you file a motion to dismiss in the District of Delaware, the case case go one of two ways, depending on the judge. Most of our current judges do not require discovery to move forward if a motion to dismiss is filed, at least absent action from the parties. Some District of Delaware judges, though, have required discovery to move forward pending a motion to dismiss. Former Chief Judge Stark made this explicit in his procedures, for example, and Judge Burke has also adopted this practice.
This seemingly minor difference in policy can make a huge difference in how a case proceeds. A complicated motion to dismiss can sometimes take a busy court anywhere from …
Judge Williams issued a noteworthy SJ opinion last week in Cisco Systems, Inc. v. Ramot at Tel Aviv University, Ltd., C.A. No. 21-1365-GBW (D. Del.).
Cisco involves a DJ action where the accused infringer is challenging the validity of a patent based on the pre-AIA § 102 on sale bar, alleging that a a third party sold a product that embodied the claimed method more than one year before the patent application.
The patentee seemingly agreed with the basic facts, but moved for summary judgment of no invalidity on the theory that the the sales were "secret."
What does "secret" mean here? At least for the purposes of this motion, the parties assume …
As our AI overloads approach a dark singularity, I occasionally amuse myself by asking it increasingly obtuse questions just to see what it spits out. Today, for instance, I asked it for a cartoon depicting the abstract legal concept of collateral estoppel:
I'm not entirely sure the old fella hit the mark on this one, but I'm honestly not sure what I would come with that's any better. Another draw on the Turing test.
Anyway...
Judge Hall issued an interesting opinion on last week on collateral estoppel. The plaintiff in Ingenus Pharms., LLC v. Hetero USA, Inc., C.A. No. 24-1025-JLH (D. Del. Oct. 21, 2025), had several suits pending in different districts regarding …
The Court seems to be trending towards holding that patent claims dropped during the claim narrowing process are gone for good.
Yesterday, in Nexus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Exela Pharma Sciences, LLC, C.A. No. 22-1233-GBW (D. Del.), Judge Williams held that a patentee cannot re-assert claims that it dropped prior to trial:
[T]his Court . . . finds that the case narrowing process in the instant action was even-handed and fair since it required Nexus to narrow its asserted claims and required Exela to narrow its asserted defenses. The fact that Nexus was unsuccessful at trial should not allow Nexus to get a second bite at the apple by now asserting those claims that …
Here at IPDE, our posts often fall into a few distinct categories. The most common type of post is "look at this interesting opinion that issued! Here is what happened, along with some context and meta-commentary."
(The second most common is probably some variation on "look at this Pennypack decision!" or "here is yet another post about redactions"—but we'll set those aside for now).
My favorite kind of post that we do, though, are our broader discussions that cut across multiple cases or judges, that address a fundamental District of Delaware practices, or that are just helpful tips for attorneys.
These are a bit more timeless—things like District of Delaware deposition tips, …
