Plaintiff’s Infringement Expert Disqualified Due to Prior Retention by Defendant

The court granted defendant's motion to disqualify plaintiff's infringement expert because of a conflict of interest based on the expert's past work for defendant in two prior ITC investigations involving the same accused products. "Both sides agree that Defendant had a confidential relationship with [the expert]. Both sides also agree that [the expert] obtained confidential information during that retention. . . . The real dispute centers around whether the prior work was relevant to the current case. On that point, the Court is heavily influenced by the fact that the parties agree that the same devices accused in this case were accused in the earlier matter. Furthermore, the time frames are nearly overlapping. . . . Plaintiff has not presented any statement from [the expert] explaining why his prior work is not relevant to the current case."

Mobile Telecommunications Technologies, LLC v. LG Electronics Mobilecomm USA, Inc., 2-13-cv-00947 (TXED July 22, 2015, Order) (Payne, M.J.)