District of Delaware

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By Memorandum Opinion entered by The Honorable Maryellen Noreika in Prescient Medicine Holdings, LLC v. Laboratory Corp. of America Holdings, et al., Civil Action No. 18-600-MN (D.Del. February 14, 2019), the Court granted Defendants’ motion to dismiss all claims of the Complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) after finding that Plaintiff failed to allege sufficient facts to assert its antitrust claims.

In its Complaint, Plaintiff alleged that Defendants conspired to exclude Plaintiff from providing laboratory testing services to the Delaware market in violation of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act and Section 16 of the Clayton Act. Id. at *1. In response, Defendants filed a motion to dismiss all claims of the Complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure Rule 12(b)(6). Id. Specifically, Defendants argued that Plaintiff’s alleged antitrust claims failed because they did not plead sufficient facts to show antitrust standing and a relevant market. Id. at *3.

Upon review, the Court agreed that Plaintiff’s Complaint did not plead sufficient facts to show the threshold requirement of antitrust standing and relevant market. Id. at *3-12. Accordingly, the Court granted Defendants’ motion to dismiss the federal antitrust claims and also dismissed Plaintiff’s accompanying state law claims after refusing to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over those claims because it had dismissed the federal antitrust claims over which it had original jurisdiction. Id.

A copy of the Memorandum Opinion is attached.

By Memorandum Order entered by The Honorable Richard G. Andrews in T-JAT Systems 2006 LTD. v. Expedia, Inc. (DE) et al., Civil Action No. 16-581-RGA (D.Del. January 29, 2019), the Court denied Plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration of the Court’s prior opinion and order granting Defendants’ motion to dismiss the action for patent infringement against Defendant Expedia-WA, a Washington corporation, for improper venue. In opposition to Defendants’ motion to dismiss, Plaintiff argued that venue over Expedia-WA exists “under 28 U.S.C. §1400(b), which provides that a patent infringement action may be brought in any district ‘where the defendant has committed acts of infringement and has a regular and established place of business.’” Id. at *2. The Court granted Defendants’ motion to dismiss after finding that Plaintiff failed to show Expedia-WA has a regular and established place of business in Delaware. Id.

In its motion for reconsideration, Plaintiff raised a new theory for venue. Id. In short, Plaintiff asserted that venue in Delaware is proper with respect to Expedia-WA because Expedia-WA wholly owns CSC Holdings Inc. (“CSC Holdings”), which wholly owns CruiseShipCenters International, Inc. (“CSC International”), and CSC International has a regular and established place of business in Delaware. Id.

After considering the parties’ respective arguments and considering evidence outside of the Complaint through a Notice of Subsequent Authority filed by Plaintiff, the Court concluded that Plaintiff did not present any new evidence warranting reconsideration and the Court did not commit a clear error of law or fact. Id. at *5-10. As part of its analysis, the Court noted the fact that CSC International operates a Delaware store did not change the outcome of the motion to dismiss because “Plaintiff fail[ed] to show that CSC International is a place of business ‘of the defendant,’ as required to establish proper venue for Expedia-WA.” Id. at *7. In other words, the Court concluded that Plaintiff did not provide any evidence that Expedia-WA engages in business from CSC International’s Delaware location. Id. at *9.

Interestingly, in its brief, Plaintiff did include a screenshot of the Google Maps result for CSC International’s Delaware location which showed a storefront sign that read “Expedia cruiseship centers” and argued that it showed that Expedia-WA ratified the Delaware location as its own. Id. However, the Court noted that the use of the Expedia logo at CSC International’s Delaware location is by itself insufficient to show that the Delaware location is a place of business of Expedia-WA. Id.

A copy of the Memorandum Order is attached.

The opinion leaves me wondering whether the result would have been any different if Plaintiff had included all of its venue assertions in the original complaint or an amended complaint before the Court issued its ruling on Defendants’ motion to dismiss. The standard on the motion for reconsideration likely made it more difficult for Plaintiff to survive the challenge to venue after the Court had previously granted the motion to dismiss.

By Memorandum Opinion entered by The Honorable Maryellen Noreika in ANI Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Method Pharmaceuticals, LLC et al., Civil Action No. 17-1097-MN (D.Del. January 11, 2019), the Court granted-in-part Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(2) or, in the Alternative, Transfer Venue to the extent that it sought to transfer the action from the District of Delaware to the Northern District of Texas. The Court denied the portion of Defendants’ Motion that sought dismissal under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(2) finding that the question of personal jurisdiction over defendant Method presented a close call but the Court lacked personal jurisdiction over defendant Tucker. Id. at *12. The Court explained that it would exercise its discretion in transferring the case regardless of the existence of personal jurisdiction over defendant Method because “judicial economy favors the prosecution of a case in its entirety, and that weighs in favor of transferring the case to the Northern District of Texas where there is no question of jurisdiction.” Id.

Ultimately, in analyzing the twelve Jumara factors, the Court found that eight factors weighed in favor of transfer while the remaining four factors were neutral. Id. at *12-19. The Court noted that, although “a plaintiff’s choice of venue is generally provided paramount consideration under Jumara, the Court’s inability to assert personal jurisdiction over one of the defendants undermine[d] that deference here. Id. at *19.

A copy of the Memorandum Opinion is attached.

By Memorandum Opinion entered by The Honorable Richard G. Andrews in Alarm.com, Inc. et al. v. Securenet Technologies LLC, Civil Action No. 15-807-RGA (D.Del. January 8, 2019), the Court granted-in-part Defendant’s Motion to Exclude the Opinions of Brett Reed.

With respect to Mr. Reed’s lost profits opinion, Defendant argued that the Court should exclude the entirety of Mr. Reed’s lost profits opinion because (1) there was a defect in his analysis of the manufacturing and marketing prong of Panduit; or (2) it contains an opinion as to Plaintiff Alarm.com’s entitlement to its lost profits prior to the date from which Plaintiff Alarm.com is legally entitled to claim lost profits. Id. at *3. Plaintiffs responded that Mr. Reed’s lost profits opinion should not be excluded because (1) the challenge to the Panduit analysis done by Mr. Reed goes to the weight of the evidence; and (2) Mr. Reed’s opinion merely addresses alternative lost profits scenarios without purporting to determine the date from which Plaintiff Alarm.com is legally entitled to claim lost profits. Id.

After considering the arguments, the Court agreed with Plaintiffs that any defect in Mr. Reed’s Panduit analysis goes to the weight and credibility of his opinion instead of its admissibility and, thus, those opinions were not excluded. Id. The Court agreed with Defendants that, to the extent Mr. Reed’s lost profits opinion provides opinions that are inconsistent with the starting date of March 8, 2017 for lost profits recovery, those opinions were excluded. Id. at *4.

The Court goes on in the opinion to exclude other opinions of Mr. Reed as to the failure of others, copying, and praise by others and refuses to exclude his opinion on commercial success. Id. at *4-10.

Copies of the Memorandum and Opinion are attached.

By Memorandum Opinion and Order entered by The Honorable Maryellen Noreika in Agrofresh Inc. v. Mirtech, Inc. et al., Civil Action No. 16-662-MN-SRF (D.Del. January 2, 2019), the Court overruled-in-part and sustained-in-part Plaintiff’s objections to Magistrate Judge Sherry Fallon’s Claim Construction Report and Recommendation (D.I. 247). The Court ultimately entered its Markman ruling construing seven (7) disputed claims in the patents-in-suit, U.S. Patent Nos. 6,017,849, 6,313,068 and 9,394,216.

Copies of the Memorandum Opinion and Order are attached.

By Memorandum Order entered by The Honorable Richard G. Andrews in TC Technology LLC v. Sprint Corp. et al., Civil Action 16-153-RGA (D.Del. December 13, 2018), the Court granted-in-part and denied-in-part defendants’ motion to compel production of non-privileged documents after finding, among other things, that Plaintiff and its joint owners had a shared legal interest in acquiring and enforcing the patent at-issue in the action and that Plaintiff met its burden of establishing the common interest privilege with respect to the disputed communications with its joint owners. Id. at *1-11. The Court also ordered Plaintiff to produce certain documents related to non-legal communications for in camera review. Id. at *11.

A copy of the Memorandum Order is attached.

By Memorandum Order entered by The Honorable Richard G. Andrews in Nox Medical EHF v. Natus Neuorology Inc., Civil Action No. 15-709-RGA (D.Del. December 7, 2018), the Court granted Plaintiff’s Motion for Reconsideration upon acknowledging that it did not appreciate the differences between U.S. Patent No. 9,059,532 (“the ‘532 Patent”) and its European counterpart when it initially denied Plaintiff’s Motion for Enhanced Damages after the jury’s finding of willful infringement by Defendant. However, after reconsideration and changing its view on the second Read factor, the Court still did not find that Defendant’s behavior was “willful, wanton, malicious, bad-faith, deliberate, consciously wrong, flagrant, or-indeed-characteristic of a pirate.” Id. at *4. Thus, the Court did not believe that enhanced damages were appropriate and again denied Plaintiff’s Post-Trial Motion for Enhanced Damages. Id. at *4-8.

A copy of the Memorandum Order is attached.

By Memorandum Opinion entered by The Honorable Richard G. Andrews in Finnavations LLC v. Payoneer, Inc., Civil Action No. 18-444-RGA (D.Del. November 26, 2018) (consolidated), the Court granted defendants’ motion to dismiss under 35 U.S.C. §101 after concluding that the asserted claims of the patent-in-suit, U.S. Patent No. 9,569,755 (“the ‘755 Patent”), are directed to patent ineligible subject matter and do not contain an inventive concept.

A copy of the Memorandum Opinion is attached.

By Memorandum Opinion and Order entered by The Honorable Maryellen Noreika in Invensas Corporation v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. et al., Civil Action No. 17-1363-MN (D.Del. November 16, 2018), the Court entered its Markman ruling construing three (3) terms in dispute in U.S. Patent Numbers 6,232,231 (“the ‘231 Patent”) and 6,849,946 (“the ‘946 Patent”).

Ultimately, the Court agreed with Plaintiff Invensas’s proposed construction for all three (3) terms in dispute finding (1) the terms “substantially planar” and “substantially co-planar” are not indefinite and that, based on the specification, a person of ordinary skill in the art (“POSA”) would understand the term “substantially planar” means “substantially flat” and the term “substantially co-planar” means “substantially at the same elevation”; (2) the specification, when read in its entirety, discloses that “dummy connectors” may be connected to a power supply or ground, but does not require that they be connected to a source that can supply a power or ground voltage as Samsung’s proposed construction would require; and (3) the term “plurality of laterally spaced dummy trenches” means “two or more dummy trenches arranged with spaces between their sides.” Id. at *5-9.

Copies of the Memorandum Opinion and Order are attached.

This is the first opinion that I have reviewed that was issued by Judge Noreika. The opinion is clear, concise, well-reasoned and easy to follow. Not an easy task to accomplish in the patent area. It appears that Judge Noreika is off to an excellent start on the bench.

By Memorandum Order entered by The Honorable Richard G. Andrews in Dragon Intellectual Property, LLC v. Dish Network, LLC, Civil Action No. 13-02066-RGA (D.Del. November 7, 2018) (consolidated), the Court denied the motions of Defendants DISH Network, LLC and Sirius XM Radio Inc. requesting the Court to declare the case exceptional and award reasonable attorneys’ fees pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 285. In denying the motions, the Court explained that the moving defendants are not prevailing parties because the previous judgments of non-infringement in the cases were vacated and, thus, the Court has not awarded “actual relief on the merits.” Id. at *2.

The Court also denied Defendants’ motions seeking an award of fees from Plaintiff’s former attorneys pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §1927. Id. at *3. Defendants identified three issues with Plaintiff’s counsel’s representation of Plaintiff that they believed entitled Defendants to an award of attorneys’ fees against Plaintiff’s counsel pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §1927. Id. The Court disagreed and found that the conduct identified by Defendants was not sufficient to support an award of fees pursuant to Section 1927 under the Third Circuit standard. Id. at *3-4.

A copy of the Memorandum Order is attached.