Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Focused Early Disclosures of Contentions, Source Code and Sales Data Facilitates Resolution of Infringement Claims in Multi-Defendant Case

Following claim construction, the court evaluated its modified docket control order requiring early disclosure of infringement contentions, plaintiff's licenses, and defendant's sales data to accommodate plaintiff's infringement suit against more than 124 defendants. "Defendants also had the option to disclose source code related to the accused instrumentalities identified in [plaintiff's] P.R. 3-1(c) chart(s). If a Defendant chose to disclose its source code, [plaintiff] was obligated to amend its P.R. 3-1(c) chart(s), incorporating the source code, within 30 days. The parties would then mediate the case, and only after the mediation were Defendants required to comply with P.R. 3-3 and 3-4 and the exchange of disclosures. . . . The parties reported that of the 124 Defendants initially named and the 95 remaining Defendants that appeared at the April status conference, only 20 parties remained in the case. . . . The parties agreed that the early disclosure of source code and sales data facilitated substantive discussions regarding noninfringement and allowed the parties to evaluate their relative positions at an early stage without the need for voluminous and expensive discovery. The parties also stated that the Court’s approach to this type of case, i.e. multiple defendant software patent case, allowed the parties to narrow the number of asserted claims and accused products significantly, in turn, reducing the cost of discovery for the remaining parties."

Uniloc USA, Inc., et. al. v. Sony Corporation of America, et. al., 6-10-cv-00373 (TXED November 3, 2011, Order) (Davis, J.)

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