Just an update: the parties and the Court made it part way through the Rein Tech hearing today, but it ultimately had to be adjourned, to be rescheduled at a later time. We'll likely post another update on the substantive protective order violation issues—which are fascinating—after the rescheduled hearing.
MN
The Honorable Maryellen Noreika
We've been following a series of hearings in Rein Tech, Inc. v. Mueller Systems, LLC, C.A. No. 18-1683-MN (D. Del.), a now-dismissed case where the inventor attempted to serve the expert witness but was excluded due to protective order violations.
The defendant later alleged that the same inventor again violated the protective order by continuing to prosecute another patent application in the same field, despite a prosecution bar.
In response, counsel for the inventor argued that the inventor did sign the prosecution document, but did not "prosecute" the patent:
Although signed by [the inventor], he did not prosecute the ‘454 patent application [Request for Continued Examination] and response that was submitted . . …
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.
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.]
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 …
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.
[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 …
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.
The moving party showed that the PDF with the AEO information included highlights, and that the metadata …
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 …
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 …
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 …
