A Blog About Intellectual Property Litigation and the District of Delaware


DED
United States District Court for the District of Delaware

Judge Stark Holds Another Remote 101 Day

David M. Fry, July 2, 2021
12(b)(6) 101 Day

We've written several times about Judge Stark's practice of holding "101 days." For the uninitiated, these are day-long hearings in which the court hears argument on multiple 101 motions from unrelated cases in a single, combined hearing. He has continued this practice throughout the pandemic, holding telephonic 101 days roughly once a quarter since July 2020.

He held another one last Friday, and he issued his written rulings earlier today. This time, he addressed three 12(b)(6) motions covering a total of four patents.

F45 Training Pty Ltd. v. Body Fit Training USA Inc. (C.A. No. 20-1194-LPS)

The claims were "directed to the abstract idea of storing, sending, and retrieving information over a network." Judge Stark found that this …

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Judge Burke Also Limits Claim Construction to 10 Terms

Nathan R. Hoeschen, July 1, 2021
10 Terms Claim Construction

tim-collins-B5ox94ZFGgI-unsplash.jpg
Road Block, Tim Collins, Unsplash

As chronicled in this very publication, for the last year or so, Judge Noreika has consistently declined to construe more than 10 terms at Markman.

An Unwritten Rule

This practice, however, has not been memorialized in Judge Noreika's form scheduling order, standing orders, or preferences and procedures. This leads to the question of whether the limit still holds when Judge Noreika refers claim construction to a magistrate.

Having just received our first data point, the answer appears to be "yes."

Judge Burke Limits Construction to 10 Terms

In March, Judge Noreika referred "all pretrial matters" in Commvault Sys., Inc. v. Rubrik, Inc., C.A. No. 20-524-MN-CJB, D.I. 55 (D. Del Mar. 5, …

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When Is a Party "Fully Represented" in an IPR for Purposes of Issue Preclusion?

David M. Fry, June 30, 2021
Collateral Estoppel

Whenever collateral estoppel comes up in a patent case, it usually generates some interesting discussion. Yesterday's decision from Judge Andrews in TQ Delta v. 2Wire is no different.

After the Federal Circuit reversed a PTAB determination of unpatentability on an unasserted claim, the plaintiff moved to estop the defendant from challenging the validity of two related claims in the district court litigation.

Judge Andrews concluded that summary judgment was inappropriate because the defendant adequately "explained how the differences between the [asserted claims] and [the adjudicated claim] alter the invalidity analysis[,]" but he also addressed an interesting question: Is a petitioner "fully represented" in an IPR when another petitioner is taking the laboring oar before the PTAB?

The defendant …

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Chief Judge Stark Delivers Update on D. Del., Passes Chief Judgship to Judge Connolly

Andrew E. Russell, June 29, 2021
FBA Court Announcement

Annual Report 2021
District of Delaware

The Delaware FBA held its annual meeting virtually today. It included really wonderful speeches by the judges, passing along the Chief Judge gavel in both the district court and the bankruptcy court.

The FBA also did a great job presenting the event via Zoom (did anyone else clap while sitting alone in their offices, or was it just me?!).

I won’t try to summarize everything that was said, consistent with our ongoing attempts—and failures—to keep our posts short. But here are some quick highlights that may be particularly relevant to IP/DE readers:

  • Chief Judge Stark passed the gavel of Chief Judge to Judge Connolly, who will be new Chief Judge following the end of Judge Stark’s term …
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Judge Andrews Addresses Infringement By Standard-Compliant Products

Jeff Castellano, June 29, 2021
Summary Judgment Standards Essential

Industry standards can be helpful for a patentee tasked with proving infringement of standard-compliant products. Standards often lay out mandatory features, such that a patentee may be able to use infringement of the standard itself as a shortcut to establish infringement of a standard-compliant product (although there are limits on that type of proof, including that the patent must cover all possible implementations of the standard).

The question of whether infringement by a standard can be used to shortcut infringement proofs for a product recently came up before Judge Andrews on a summary judgment motion by the plaintiff in TQ Delta, LLC v. 2Wire, Inc., C.A. No. 13-1835-RGA.

The defendant's products in TQ Delta were accused of implementing an infringing functionality . . .

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Can a Party Redact "Irrelevant" Information from Relevant Documents in Discovery, on the Basis That It Is a Trade Secret?

Andrew E. Russell, June 28, 2021
Protective Order LR 26.2

Secret
"SECRET" stamp, RestrictedData, CC BY 2.0

The parties in Progressive Sterilization, LLC v. Turbett Surgical LLC, C.A. No. 19-637 (D. Del.) brought a dispute about "excessive" redactions to certain production in their patent action.

The defendant sought information from third parties who were under contract with the plaintiff, including various consultants and a former business partner.

Plaintiff apparently has confidentiality agreements with these people, and tried to filter their document production in the case, redacting information it thought should not be produced to the defendant. According to defendant's letter brief:

[Plaintiff] insisted on reviewing [the] third-party subpoena recipients’ responsive documents and redacting certain non-privileged content . . . prior to their production to Defendants

According …

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"Should this be a motion or a discovery dispute?" Tread carefully...

Andrew E. Russell, June 25, 2021
Discovery Dispute

Here's a new one: A defendant in Natera, Inc. v. ArcherDX, Inc., C.A. No. 20-125-LPS (D. Del.) wanted to delay the trial to coordinate the schedule with another case involving an overlapping patent. So it filed a letter asking for leave to file a 3-page letter briefs, or to have a teleconference:

Given the parties have been unable to agree on an appropriate approach for coordination of both cases, we respectfully request leave to submit the competing views to Your Honor during a status conference or 3-page letter briefs.

Chief Judge Stark denied the request, directing the parties to file a motion instead:

ORAL ORDER: Having reviewed the parties' letters . . . relating to [the …
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O2 Micro? More Like No2 Micro

Nathan R. Hoeschen, June 24, 2021
O2 Micro Claim Construction

We at IPDE have chronicled the Court's efforts to limit the number of terms it construes pretty extensively. Just last month, we discussed Judge Noreika's opinion in Sentient Sensors, LLC v. Cypress Semiconductor Corp., C.A. No. 19-1868-MN (D. Del. May 17, 2021) where she shot down the plaintiff's motion to reconsider one of her claim construction rulings, citing O2 Micro.

This week, there are some further claim construction developments worth talking about—but we'll start first with some interesting history that we overlooked last time around.

A Difficult Claim Construction Journey

Although we didn't discuss it in our previous post, this case had already had a tempestuous claim construction process. The parties had initially submitted 8 disputed …

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Judge Hall Denies Attorneys' Fees, Rejects Argument That ANDA Suit Triggering 30-Month Stay Was Unreasonable

Andrew E. Russell, June 23, 2021
ANDA 30-Month Stay

Pills
HalGatewood.com, Unsplash

Judge Hall today issued an R&R on attorneys fees in In Re Kerydin (Tavaborole) Topical Solution 5% Patent Litigation, MDL No. 19-md-2884-RGA (D. Del. June 23, 2021), an ANDA case.

There, the plaintiff filed suit on four patents even though the PTAB had previously found an earlier patent in the family invalid in an IPR, and even though IPRs were pending on each of the four patents-in-suit.

Filing suit triggered the 30-month stay of FDA approval. Shortly after the suit was filed, one of the defendants moved to stay; plaintiff did not oppose, and actually filed a cross-motion to stay its own action against the other defendants (who opposed).

The Court granted the …

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Update on Judge Andrews' Order to File Settlement Agreements to Determine Damages After Default

Andrew E. Russell, June 22, 2021
Damages Settlement Agreements

Last month we wrote about Judge Andrews' order that a plaintiff who won a default judgment against Aston Martin, LLC must file any settlement agreements from seven other patent suits, in order to help the Court determine the proper damages award.

Plaintiff has now responded.

We wondered in our last post whether the Court would permit plaintiff to file under seal. The answer is yes: the Court found the following short paragraph from the briefing to be sufficient to permit filing the settlement agreements and settlement amounts under seal:

Good cause exists to seal these Settlement and License Agreements. The Agreements contain confidentiality clauses such that if the documents were not filed under seal, Plaintiff might be in breach …
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