If, like me, you're wondering what changed: worry not! We did a comparison. The main change, other than minor wording and formatting revisions, is that his procedures for ranking summary judgment and Daubert motions now apply to non-patent cases.
This makes sense—we see plenty of rather large and heavily-litigated competitor cases that are not patent cases here in D. Del., including copyright and trade secret cases. These can involve multiple summary judgment motions just like patent actions.
Interestingly, Chief Judge Connolly did not import the page limits for summary judgment motions into his non-patent scheduling order. In …
AI image generation is getting really good.AI-generated, displayed with permission
Federal Rule of Evidence 408 is kind of a funny thing. It says that settlement conduct and discussions are inadmissible "to prove or disprove the validity or amount of a disputed claim" or for impeachment.
That's significant, but it leaves open a lot of potential uses of settlement communications throughout the case—not to mention in later cases, potentially on different claims. The rule explicitly sets forth that such communications and conduct are still admissible for other purposes:
(b) Exceptions. The court may admit this evidence for another purpose, such as proving a witness’s bias or prejudice, negating a contention of undue delay, or proving an effort to obstruct a …
The patent generally relates to a data cable like this (shown in cross section).U.S. Pat. No. 9,991,030
I admit that, before today, I had no idea how to distinguish between an "artifact noun" and a "natural kind noun." Nor did I know how such knowledge could ever be relevant to my interests. But now I do!
In ruling on claim construction in Belden Inc. v. CommScope, Inc., C.A. No. 22-783-RGA (D. Del.), Judge Andrews ended up delving into grammar to determine whether the term "non-conductively shielding" was indefinite.
The patent at issue related to high-performance data cables (for example, Cat 6A cables used for 10 GB Ethernet). The patent describes that these cables can have four …
I know you, dear loyal readers, depend upon us for your very sustenance. A week with IP/DE is like a week without the sun, a summer without ice cream, a concert with no encore. The life of a patent lawyer is gray enough without the small indignity of a blog break.
But we have begun our halting return! Andrew reminded me that we were back today, and following some initial cursing that cannot be repeated on even the most bawdy of blogs, we have again taken up the mantle of infotainment resource.
Rejoice!
AI-Generated, displayed with permission
Today's case is a fun one. Plaintiff in BE Tech. LLC v. Google LLC, C.A. No. 20-622-GBW, D.I. 348 (D. Del. Apr. 16, 2026) had a rocky road to summary judgment. At the motion to dismiss stage --long long ago now -- they'd faced a series of 101 challenges to the patent in suit. In these proceedings, Judge Stark had twice found that one of the claims in the patent in suit was representative and that it failed Alice at step one for being directed to an abstract idea.
The motions were ultimately denied however with the court finding that fact issues precluded a decision on step 2. Defendants ultimately filed IPR's on all of the patents and the case was stayed for some time. The PTAB then invalidated all but one claim of one of the patents -- not the one that the court had previously found representative.
The case resumed and the parties cross-moved for summary judgment on 101 grounds. The plaintiff argued that the court's prior holding that the now-invalid claim was representative, and that all the claims failed step 1, was no longer binding now that the claim was out of the case.
Nate and I are still either traveling or heads-down in work, and we won't be back until April 20th. But this is an important update that I wanted to pass along, at least for Delaware counsel who frequently handle pro hac motions.
Today, Chief Judge Connolly issued a new standing order that changes the pro hac vice procedures in his cases. As set forth in the order, in addition to filing the usual pro hac motion, the movant must attach one of two new form certifications to the submission.
In the standing order, the Court recognizes (as we've mentioned) that attorney conduct in the District of Delaware is governed by the ABA Model Rules. Those …
It's well known that, in evaluating a motion to dismiss, the Court is limited on what it can consider to, e.g. the four corners of the complaint, documents incorporated therein, and things the Court can take judicial notice of.
Rule 12 sets out that a Court can convert a motion to dismiss to an SJ motion if it wants to consider matters outside of the pleadings:
Result of Presenting Matters Outside the Pleadings. If, on a motion under Rule 12(b)(6) or 12(c), matters outside the pleadings are presented to and not excluded by the court, the motion must be treated as one for summary judgment under Rule 56. All parties must be given a reasonable opportunity …
It's funny—for all the massive amounts of time spent litigating willfulness in patent cases, and the big evidentiary impact it can have, we don't get opinions addressing whether the Court will actually enhance damages all that often.
Yesterday, Judge Andrews issued a post-trial opinion addressing enhancement of damages after a willfulness finding. He applied the well-known Read factors to determine whether to enhance damages, noting that they are still persuasive even though they are no longer required after the Supreme Court's more recent Haloopinion.
Here's how the factors panned out, including whether they weighed in favor of or against enhancement of damages
I'll be honest, I'm busy today so its gonna be a short one.
Let's get this over with -- first a picture:
I cannot imagine how this fit into the post it was intended forAI-Generated, displayed with permission
Second, and last, the following amusing and instructive footnote from Judge Andrews' opinion on post-trial briefing in the long running case of Acceleration Bar LLC v. Amazon Web Servs., Inc., C.A. No. 22-904-RGA (D. Del. Mar. 26, 2026):
Defendant's Opening Brief of twenty-five pages (D.I. 332) raises at least seventeen arguments (D.I. 360). When I noticed a general absence of any attempt to explain how Defendant had preserved most of these arguments, I directed Defendant to submit a …
For the second time in two weeks, Chief Judge Connolly has un-referred a case from a magistrate judge after the parties filed their fifth discovery dispute.
Last time, he scheduled an in-person hearing (rather than the more typical remote hearing) and imposed costs and fees for the losing party. This time, he went further, and threatened a possible trial time penalty if either party takes an unreasonable position.
In Beckman Coulter, Inc. v. Cytek Biosciences, Inc., C.A. No. 24-945-CFC (D. Del.), Chief Judge Connolly had referred all disputes to Magistrate Judge Tennyson just over a year ago. Since then, the parties have brought five discovery disputes, spread out pretty evenly over time:
Although it's included on every scheduling order I've ever seen, the import of the close of fact discovery is not always obvious. Can you bring discovery disputes after? Do you need to update discovery responses after? What even is a fact?
Judge Andrews had an order yesterday in Exelixis, Inc. v. Sun Pharm. Ind. Ltd., C.A. No. 24-1208-RGA, D.I. 188 (D. Del. Mar. 20, 2026), that sheds a bit of light on what you can't do near the close of fact discovery.
The defendant had filed a motion for international judicial assistance (Hagueling, I call it) last month, a couple weeks before the close of fact discovery. The Plaintiff opposed on the …
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