Last week, Judge Andrews addressed a serious of motions in limine in Astrazeneca AB v. Zydus Pharms. (USA) Inc., C.A. No. 18-664-RGA (D. Del.). These rulings are often interesting; here, Judge Andrews excluded some former expert testimony as hearsay, rejecting the idea that the testimony was a party admission:

Defendant seeks to exclude testimony and evidence that relate to positions it and its experts took in relation to the patent-in-suit (as prior art) in District of New Jersey litigation involving other patents. . . . The evidence, which is described as trial transcripts, expert reports, invalidity contentions, proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law, and “support documents” (consisting altogether of about fourteen proposed exhibits) is …

We wrote previously about Judge Andrews' rejection of a proposed stipulation "that dismisses three patents without prejudice so the other two can be appealed," which he said was "just allowing for what is essentially an interlocutory appeal." At that time, he asked the parties to "submit something, jointly or separately, . . . explaining why I should approve the stipulation as is, or, if the other three patents are just fluff, why the three shouldn’t be dismissed with prejudice."

The parties in Malvern Panalytical, Inc. v. TA Instruments-Waters, LLC, C.A. No. 19-2157-RGA took Judge Andrews up on his invitation: Both sides submitted letters in support of their stipulation and proposed judgment, but yesterday Judge Andrews confirmed his earlier view that the proposed judgment was an impermissible bid for an interlocutory appeal, and he declined to enter it.

Judge Andrews today released a claim construction regarding several computer bag claims. Six of the claims at issue included elements regarding orientation of the opening in a computer bag:

“[pouch] opening[s] [is/are] . . . oriented in a direction substantially parallel to the planar surface”

He found the claims indefinite because a POSITA would not understand the "orientation" of a bag opening, and the specification and prosecution history offered no hints:

At oral argument, [defendant] Victorinox contended that it is impossible to choose between two plausible views as to how to identify the orientation of the pouch opening; the “planar view” articulated by Victorinox and the direction pointing out of the pouch …

Last week, we asked whether jury trials in Delaware had finally arrived. After a long period of fits and starts, the answer is yes!

Judge Andrews successfully held a jury trial in a criminal case this week, culminating in a "not guilty" verdict today. Everything seems to have gone off without a hitch, with jury selection, preliminary instructions, opening statements, and multiple witness examinations taking place in a single day.

There's a huge backlog of jury trials in D. Del., and the court is still only equipped to hold one jury trial at a time (with a separate courtroom serving as the public observation area). But this is a big step …

In another ruling from the In Re ChanBond litigation as it approaches trial, Judge Andrews today issued an in-depth opinion granting a motion in limine to exclude reference to prior expert testimony from a related IPR proceeding, on the grounds that the testimony is hearsay.

Plaintiff sought to admit the material as former testimony under FRE 804(b)(1), because it is helpful to its infringement case. The rule requires, however, that the former testimony was offered against the parties' predecessor who had "an opportunity and similar motive to develop it."

Here, Judge Andrews found that an IPR petitioner's motive in developing expert testimony to show invalidity is different from a defendant's motive developing its non-infringement position:

I …

Judge Andrew's In re Chanbond opinion an Friday focused primarily on reopening discovery, but it also addressed a second issue, which I thought merited a separate post.

Shortly before trial, in a reply brief, Defendants sought production of an "Advisory Services Agreement" between the plaintiff and third party IPNav. They had previously informally requested the document at a deposition, and renewed that request as part of their motion to reopen discovery after the document's importance became apparent in light of the standing dispute. Defendants request at the deposition was apparently on the record, and Plaintiff indicated it would look for the document, but Defendants did not follow up with a formal document request:

I agree with Plaintiff that Defendants …

In In Re Chanbond, LLC Patent Litigation, Judge Andrews denied a request for post-pretrial-order discovery on Friday. The request came after Defendants received an e-mail from attorneys from third-party Deirdre Leane alleging that her consent was required for any settlement between the defendants and plaintiff ChanBond:

On September 2, 2020, Defendants received an email from Ms. Leane’s counsel, informing them of a dispute between Ms. Leane and ChanBond. . . . The email stated, “As we read Section 8.3 of the ISA, Ms. Leane’s written consent is required given that a license is a transfer of an interest in the patents-in-suit, which in turn are material assets of ChanBond.” . . . The email warned, “[P]lease take notice …

We've noted previously that it is tremendously difficult to win a motion for interlocutory appeal in Delaware (and pretty much everywhere else). So it comes as no surprise that litigants—innovators all—will occasionally come up with new ways to achieve the same result without all the difficulties attendant with actually moving. We now know that at least one of these methods does not work.

The parties in Malvern Panalytical, Inc. v. TA Instruments-Waters LLC, C.A. No. 19-2157-RGA (D. Del.) filed a joint stipulation dismissing the 5-patent case following a claim construction opinion that apparently definitively absolved the defendant of infringing 2 of the patents. Id., D.I. 163. The stipulation, however, only dismissed the claims as to those 2 patents with prejudice while specifically reserving the plaintiff's right to "reassert the [remaining] [p]atents in the future, including in the event of a reversal and remand to this Court following the expected appeal from the final judgment entered pursuant to this Joint Stipulation of Non-Infringement." Id.

Despite that fact that this was a joint stipulation ...

Under Judge Andrews' form scheduling order, the parties are allotted a certain number of pages for both Daubert and summary judgment briefs. Given how difficult it is to win most Daubert motions in the district, it might sometimes make sense to forego filing one in order to devote more pages to briefing a seemingly stronger SJ motion.

Yesterday, Judge Andrews gave the district a reason to rethink this strategy.

The defendants in M2M Solutions LLC v. Sierra Wireless America, Inc., C.A. No 14-1102-RGA-CJB, moved for summary judgment of non-infringement, relying largely on their expert's opinion that the devices did not practice a particular limitation. D.I. 213 at 3 (D. Del. Mar 31, 2021). The …

We keep writing about how hard it is to win a motion to strike in D. Del., which is generally true. That said, it's still possible to get late-disclosed theories and evidence excluded, especially when there's no good explanation for the delay.

Yesterday afternoon, one plaintiff learned that lesson the hard way. As often happens, the plaintiff argued that the defendant's expert raised new opinions on motivation-to-combine in his reply report.

But instead of moving to strike (or seeking leave to submit a sur-rebuttal report, or dealing with the issue during expert depositions...), the plaintiff simply waited until summary judgment briefing. There, it submitted a rebuttal declaration from its own expert in support of its answering brief on invalidity. …