Infringement Opinions of Inventor-Expert Excluded as Unhelpful Advocacy

The court granted defendant's motion to exclude the infringement opinions of plaintiff's inventor-expert because they were unreliable. "[M]ost of [the expert's] conclusions are simply implicit arguments about what claim construction should be, and are therefore irrelevant advocacy rather than helpful expert testimony. . . . Nearly all of [his] conclusions reads this way: they argue implicitly that the claim should be construed so that [defendant's] Patient Portal infringes. . . . [His] conclusory, self-serving statements were not helpful to the Court in construing the claims, and they are now mooted by the Court’s determined claim construction. To the extent [the inventor-expert] proffers opinions that are something more than disguised claim construction arguments, those opinions too are now irrelevant or unreliable, as they rely on a claim construction other than the Court’s. . . . Similarly, [his] unsupported assertions — made without explanation or elaboration that would allow a fact finder to follow his reasoning and come to the same conclusion — have no impact on the Court’s resolution of this case on summary judgment."

523 IP LLC v. CureMD.Com, 1-11-cv-09697 (NYSD September 24, 2014, Order) (Failla, J.)

Stay Pending IPR as to Three of Eight Asserted Patents Denied

The court denied plaintiff's motion to stay its own declaratory relief action pending inter partes review because the potential simplification of issues did not favor a stay. "A stay no doubt simplifies the issues where all of the patents-in-suit are subject to IPR. . . . Here, only three of the eight patents-in-suit are subject to IPR. Under these circumstances, courts generally deny a stay of the proceedings. . . . [T]he Court is not inclined to allow five of the eight patents-in-suit to 'languish' while the PTAB reviews only three of the patents-in-suit. Moreover, the Court notes that nothing is preventing [plaintiff] from dismissing its claims as to the three patents subject to the IPR without prejudice."

SCVNGR, Inc. d/b/a LevelUp v. eCharge Licensing, LLC, 1-13-cv-12418 (MAD September 25, 2014, Order) (Casper, J.)

Overbroad Claiming of Automation Rules Renders Claim Unpatentable

The court granted defendants' motion for judgment on the pleadings that plaintiff's "patents for automatically animating the lip synchronization and facial expressions of 3D characters" were invalid for lacking patentable subject matter. "[T]he point of novelty here is the idea of using rules, including timing rules, to automate the process of generating keyframes . . . [W]hat the claim adds to the prior art is the use of rules, rather than artists, to set the morph weights and transitions between phonemes [the smallest unit of speech, corresponding to a single sound]. However, both of these concepts are specified at the highest level of generality. . . [T]he user, not the patent, provides the rules. And while the patent does provide an example of a very partial set of default and secondary rules, it expressly states that 'this is only an example of a set of rules which could be use[d] for illustrative purposes, and many other rules could be specified according to the method of the invention.' Because the claim purports to cover all such rules, in light of the prior art, the claim merely states 'an abstract idea while adding the words 'apply it.’'. . . . This case illustrates the danger that exists when the novel portions of an invention are claimed too broadly."

McRo, Inc. v. Namco Bandai Games America, Inc., 2-12-cv-10322 (CACD September 22, 2014, Order) (Wu, J.)

Assertion of Frivolous Infringement Claims No Basis for Misuse Defense

The court granted plaintiff's motion for summary judgment that its electronics testing patents were not unenforceable for patent misuse. "[Defendant argues] that a counterclaim of patent misuse is . . . cognizable when the patent holder is engaged in 'sham litigation,' lacking any reasonable basis to believe that its patent claims are colorable and simply attempting to interfere with a competitor’s operations. . . . This Court has reviewed the various authorities cited by [defendant] in support of its contention that a patent misuse counterclaim can be premised solely on the assertion that the patent holder is asserting frivolous infringement claims, and finds that none of those authorities persuasive on this point. Indeed, the very notion is paradoxical: there is no need for a defense of patent misuse – which precludes the patent holder from enforcing the patent against the successful defendant until such misuse ceases – in situations where the infringement claims themselves are frivolous. Put differently, where there is no colorable assertion of infringement, no defense to the nonexistent infringement is necessary."

L-3 Communications Corporation, et al v. Jaxon Engineering & Maintenance, Inc., et al, 1-10-cv-02868 (COD September 22, 2014, Order) (Krieger, J.)

Evidence of PTAB Institution Decision Excluded Under FRE 403

The court granted defendant's motion to exclude the PTAB's denial of an IPR petition under Rule 403. "I agree that the . . . IPR denial is a final decision. I do not agree that it is a decision on the merits, any more so than a grant of an IPR is a decision on the merits. It is akin to a ruling on a preliminary injunction, where the merits are assessed with less than a full record and with less than a full adversarial proceeding. . . . [T]he patent examiner is a person of ordinary skill in the art, whereas the IPR decisions are made by lawyers who are not persons of ordinary skill in the art. . . . [T]he PTAB's actions in relation to the [patent-in-suit] are of marginal relevance, and the probative value is greatly outweighed by the expenditure of time that would be required to give the jury the full context necessary to fairly evaluate the evidence."

InterDigital Communications Inc. et al v. Nokia Corporation et al, 1-13-cv-00010 (DED September 19, 2014, Order) (Andrews, J.)

Defendant’s Litigation Misconduct Precludes Laches Defense

Following an evidentiary hearing, the court rejected defendant's laches defense because defendant failed to prove laches, and even if it had, "the Court would conclude that [defendant] should not benefit from laches because its hands are not clean." "As is detailed both in this record and in the proceeding severed out of this case to resolve allegations that [defendant] impermissibly attempted to interfere with [plaintiff's] expert, [defendant] engaged in unprofessional conduct that threatened, but fortunately did not affect, the integrity of this litigation. Sitting in equity, the Court cannot countenance such behavior — let alone allow it to benefit from an equitable remedy."

U.S. Ethernet Innovations, LLC v. Texas Instruments Incorporated et al, 6-11-cv-00491 (TXED September 18, 2014, Order) (Schneider, J.)

PTAB's Institution of IPR Does Not Conclusively Establish Reasonableness of Invalidity Defense

The court denied defendants' motion for summary judgment that they did not willfully infringe plaintiffs' telephone relay systems patents and rejected their argument that the PTAB's grant of inter partes review was conclusive evidence of a reasonable invalidity defense. "I agree with defendants that in light of the heightened threshold showing necessary for the grant of inter partes review, the review proceedings should be entitled to more weight in the reasonableness analysis than was given to the prior re-examination procedure. Nonetheless, I am not persuaded that the grant of review deserves conclusive weight. . . . Notwithstanding the elevated threshold for obtaining review, the preliminary and incomplete nature of a decision to institute inter partes review cautions against affording those decisions conclusive weight. . . . Although nothing in [In re Seagate Technology, LLC, 497 F.3d 1360 (Fed. Cir. 2007)] clearly precludes the court from affording controlling weight to a grant of review by the board, I am satisfied that the more prudent course is to make a reasonableness determination after hearing a full presentation of the evidence from both sides at trial."

Ultratec, Inc. et al v. Sorenson Communications, Inc. et al, 3-13-cv-00346 (WIWD August 28, 2014, Order) (Crabb, J.)