A Blog About Intellectual Property Litigation and the District of Delaware


MN
The Honorable Maryellen Noreika

Many (2) years ago, we (Andrew) wrote a (comparatively) riveting post about the Court denying a stipulation to extend redaction deadlines (insert witty parenthetical). In that post we speculated that the denial may have been due to either the number of documents affected (10) or the long length of the extension (6 weeks). No firm conclusion could be reached without greater powers of divination.

Hulki Okan, Unsplash

Yesterday we had another denial of a stip to extend redaction times in Qualcomm Inc. v. ARM Holdings PLC, C.A. No. 24-490-MN. D.I. 494 (D. Del. Nov. 17, 2025), that I think was a bit less mysterious.

The stipulation related to redacted SJ filings—openings, oppositions, and replies with all the accompanying papers.

The parties had already extended the deadlines for everything by several weeks when they filed a new stipulation seeking to move back the redaction deadlines for just the exhibits by a few more weeks.

I am no augur (that's Andrew's beat), and my powers to pierce the veil of the Court's reasoning are only of for mundane sort. But for my money, the key reason this stip was denied can be found in the following passage—I dare you to read it without your eyes glazing over:

the deadline for the parties to file redacted versions of their respective declarations and exhibits associated with opening (D.I. 410-413, 416-418, 422-424, 427-429, 432, 435-436, 439-440, 444-445), opposition (D.I. 448-450, 452, 454-455, 457, 459, 465-470), and reply (D.I. 479-480, 483, 485, 487, 491-492) summary judgment and Daubert papers is here by extended to December 1, 2025.

I tried to count how many docket items this is like 3 times before giving up. I can tell you it's on the order of 50, shoot me an email if you've got what you think is the real number (I promise I won't even try to check your math!).

[Edited by Andrew: It's 41. I think.]

Sir, is this
Sir, is this "complex technology" requiring an expert? Nah British Library, Unsplash

As we laid out in Friday's post, there was a hearing today in Rein Tech, Inc. v. Mueller Systems, LLC, C.A. No. 18-1683-MN (D. Del.) regarding another potential protective order violation. The defendant in Rein alleged that the inventor (who has seen AEO information) has continued to prosecute another patent application in the same field, despite the prosecution bar in the Court's protective order.

Update on Today's Hearing

The Court opened the hearing today by announcing that it intended to grant the defendant's SJ motion of non-infringement. Shortly thereafter, counsel for the patentee informed the Court that the patentee is now willing to …

[Update: The hearing below has moved to 2:00pm today in Courtroom 4B (not 4A)]

Fireworks, n.,
Fireworks, n., "a display of temper or intense conflict" (per Merriam-Webster.com) Moritz Mentges, Unsplash

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 …

In our recent post about the Court finding a protective order violation by an inventor / principal / expert / man of many hats, we promised a second post about how the accused infringer used PDF metadata from PACER in a clever way to establish the protective order violation. This is that second post.

Basically, the parties disputed who had edited a document containing Attorney's Eyes Only information. The inventor had switched counsel, but the moving party claimed that the edits were made by the inventor, not counsel.

Screenshot of the metadata for a highlight as it appears in Adobe Acrobat
Screenshot of the metadata for a highlight as it appears in Adobe Acrobat D.I. 81-17

The moving party showed that the PDF with the AEO information included highlights, and that the metadata …

Andrew E. Russell, CC BY 2.0

The protective order hearing last week was even more interesting than anticipated. We laid out the background our last post, but here are the basics:

In this patent action, the inventor of the patents-in-suit is also a principal of the plaintiff entity Rein Tech, as well as the prosecuting attorney, the testifying expert, and (likely) a fact witness. He's doing a lot here.

Because he is the principal and a competitive decision maker, and even though he is a testifying expert who apparently issued a report, the parties (more or less) agreed that he is precluded from seeing Attorneys' Eyes Only ("AEO") information under the protective order in the action.

Beyond that, the …

Plaintiff's principal with his towering pillar of hats
Plaintiff's principal with his towering pillar of hats AI-Generated, displayed with permission

If you happen to be in Wilmington, DE tomorrow—perhaps as a summer associate—and feel like attending an interesting hearing, it could be worth stopping by Judge Noreika's Courtroom 4A at 10am.

The hearing involves an alleged protective order violation by plaintiff Rein Tech and its principal. See Rein Tech, Inc. v. Mueller Systems, LLC, C.A. No. 18-1683-MN, D.I. 170 (D. Del. May 16, 2025).

An Alleged Disclosure of AEO Information And an Alleged Prosecution Bar Violation

Rein Tech's principal apparently wears many hats. In addition to being the head of Rein Tech, he is also the named inventor on the asserted patents, the prosecuting attorney …

Apparenly this is a picture of a large magnet, rather than a particle accelerator. Either way, it looks like someone left their binder in it.
Apparenly this is a picture of a large magnet, rather than a particle accelerator. Either way, it looks like someone left their binder in it. Brandon Style, Unsplash

We've talked about this before, but it was so long ago that I think it's worth pointing out again. Typically, left to their own devices, parties in patent cases will schedule initial contentions, then claim construction and a Markman hearing, and then final contentions.

In theory, the final contentions can then reflect claim constructions. In practice, it doesn't always work out that way, given that a Markman opinion may come out after the hearing anyway. If you want to have constructions before final contentions, you need to leave a fair …

I don't think I'm speaking out of turn when I say that snap removal is a patently ridiculous concept. Whatever lawyer first decided to float this argument deserves all of the praise I can heap upon them, both for the inventiveness and sheer audacity. In fact, lets take a moment to snap for them now:

Some say he's still writing that brief. . .
Some say he's still writing that brief. . . AI-Generated, displayed with permission

In any case, snap removal has been the law in the Third Circuit since Encompass Ins. Co. v. Stone Mansion Rest. Inc., 902 F.3d 147, 152-53 (3d Cir. 2018), where the Court held that the plain language of the removal statute required snap removal even though the "result may be peculiar." Id. at 153-54.

But real snappies will be aware of the next big thing—"super snap" removals, which the Third Circuit has yet to address. A super (duper) snap removal (expialadocious) is where the plaintiff electronically submits the complaint, the defendant becomes aware of it through their docket-monitoring service of choice, and then removes the case before the filing has even been accepted by the clerk.

Snappy.

The Ninth Circuit—the first to address this growing class of removals—held that they "had a foundational defect—the absence of an existing civil action in state court—that rendered them not just defective but legally null and void." Casola v. Dexcom, Inc., 98 F.4th 947, 963 (9th Cir. 2024).

Judge Noreika had a decision yesterday on a middle-ground between regular and snap removal, which I have chosen to call semi-super snap removal (expialadocious). The plaintiff in Higgins v. Novartis Pharms. Corp, C.A. No. 25-245-MN (D. Del. May 14, 2025) filed ...

Stack of Papers
Christa Dodoo, Unsplash

This is something we've talked about before, but the blog is always picking up new readers, so I figured it's worth revisiting for the newcomers.

Yesterday, Judge Noreika denied a stipulation to extend the page limits for the briefing on a motion to dismiss from the default 20/20/10 (opening/answering/reply) to 30/30/10:

ORAL ORDER re 16 Stipulation Regarding Motion to Dismiss - IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the stipulation is DENIED. The Court will not extend the page limits. ORDERED by Judge Maryellen Noreika on 11/12/2024. (dlw) (Entered: 11/12/2024)

Advanced Accelerator Applications USA, Inc. v. Curium US LLC, C.A. NO. 24-1161-MN, D.I. 17 (D. Del. Nov. 12, 2024).

The stipulation had sought additional pages …