Plaintiff's Statement Concerning Inappropriate Purpose of Litigation Was Sufficient to Send Unclean Hands Defense to Jury

The court denied plaintiff's motion for summary judgment on defendant's unclean hands defense. "[Defendant] asserts that [plaintiff's] hands are not clean because it brought this lawsuit 'as a business strategy to drain [defendant's] resources and scare away potential customers,' and not because it had 'a good faith basis to believe that [plaintiff] was infringing the patents-in-suit.' . . . [Defendant] relies on [plaintiff's vice-president's] statement that the 'primary goals' of this lawsuit were to divert resources from [defendant] and to prevent potential customers from seriously considering [defendant's] products. The court concludes that is sufficient evidence of [plaintiff's] unclean hands to allow the defense to be presented to the jury."

Abbott Point of Care Inc. v. Epocal, Inc., 5-08-cv-00543 (ALND February 9, 2012, Order) (Smith, J.)