Chicago IP Attorney & Lawyer : R. David Donoghue : Chicago IP Litigation Blog

Peter Zura has an excellent post at his 271 Patent Blog about the latest statistical analysis of patent litigations by Professor Paul Janicke of The University of Houston Law Center -- you can read Prof. Janicke's study here or get a copy of his related PowerPoint slides here.  Of particular note to readers of the Blog, the Northern District remains in the top five districts based upon the number of patent filings, with almost 5% of the nation’s patent cases filed here. Zura also notes that the median verdict was $4.2M, which is almost the median cost litigants pay to take a $25M+ patent case to trial ($4.5M according to the 2005 AIPLA survey).  Finally, post-eBay permanent injunctions are denied 25% of the time, as opposed to 16% pre-eBay.

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Abanco Int'l., Inc. v. Guestlogix Inc., __ F. Supp.2d __, 2007 WL 1492928 (N.D. Ill. May 21, 2007) (Bucklo, J.).

Judge Bucklo dismissed plaintiff's conspiracy claim but not its unjust enrichment and tortious interference claims, holding that the former was preempted by the Illinois Trade Secret Act ("ITSA").  Plaintiff alleged that it entered a business relationship with defendant, supported by a confidentiality agreement (the "Agreement").  The parties were working together to supply airlines with electronic "buy-on-board" systems that would allow passengers to pay for drinks and other in-flight purchases with credit cards.  Plaintiff alleged that, based upon the Agreement, it provided defendant confidential, trade secret information about its buy-on-board system (the "Abanco System") and that with defendant's support, plaintiff entered negotiations to provide the Abanco System to third party American Airlines.  But after the parties' relationship soured, American Airlines allegedly ended negotiations with plaintiff and entered an agreement with defendant for a buy-on-board system.  Plaintiff then filed suit against defendant alleging trade secret misappropriation, breach of the Agreement, unjust enrichment, tortious interference and conspiracy.  The Court held that plaintiff's unjust enrichment and tortious interference claims were not preempted by ITSA because they were based upon information protected by the Agreement in addition to plaintiff's alleged trade secrets.  Specifically, plaintiff alleged that it gave defendant information "including information that was confidential, non-public, and proprietary and which constituted Abanco trade secrets." (emphasis added by the Court).  But plaintiff's conspiracy claim was based solely upon defendant's and American Airline's use of information obtained from Abanco "constitut[ing] trade secrets belonging to Abanco."  Because Abanco did not claim the conspiracy used any information other than its trade secrets, the conspiracy claim was preempted.

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Trading Techs. Int'l., Inc. v. GL Consultants, No. 05 C 4120, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. May 17, 2007) (Gottschall, J.).*

Judge Gottschall denied defendant GL Trade SA's ("GL SA") motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, with leave to refile after completion of jurisdictional discovery.  GL SA is a French company located in Paris.  GL SA does not have an office or any assets in Illinois, but it does have a subsidiary, defendant GL Americas, Inc. ("GL Americas").  GL Americas maintains a regional office in Chicago.  The Court noted that despite three rounds of briefing on jurisdiction, neither party "provided anything of substance to the court."  Plaintiff Trading Technologies ("TT") treated GL SA's subsidiary GL Americas as GL SA, and had not submitted evidence of GL SA's specific contacts with Illinois.  GL SA submitted several declarations, but none sufficiently clarified that GL SA did not have minimum contacts with Illinois.  As a result, the Court held that it lacked sufficient evidence to rule upon the motion, and granted TT's motion for jurisdictional discovery.

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Stafford Trading, Inc. v. Lovely, No. 05 C 4868, 2007 WL 1512417 (N.D. Ill. May 21, 2007) (Coar, J.).

Judge Coar granted in part declaratory judgment plaintiffs' (collectively "Stafford") motion to dismiss and denied Stafford's summary judgment motion.  The Court dismissed defendants' fraud and unjust enrichment counterclaims after holding that they were preempted by the Illinois Trade Secret Act.  The Court also dismissed defendants' fraudulent concealment.  The material fact that Stafford allegedly failed to disclose was the opinion that Stafford owned the RIVAS electronic options trading platform outright.  But the Court held that an allegedly withheld opinion could not support a fraudulent concealment claim.

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Hopefully this Memorial Day finds you honoring our service men and women, not working.  In either case, U.S Patent No. 7,082,889 is to a device for displaying Old Glory.  On this Memorial Day, the Blog hangs a virtual flag in honor of all those serving our country.  We also extend our condolences to the families of Coleman, Michigan, near where we grew up, who spend today mourning a lost son.

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Litigators (IP or otherwise) often have difficulty looking at their cases and the legal process more generally from the perspective of the other participants -- their adversaries, their clients and jurors.  The new blog In this case does just that.  It tells stories of people's experiences with the legal system.  So far, none of the content is IP-related, but it is interesting reading.  And the perspectives of jurors could prove very valuable during your next trial.  For example, this is a story from a mother of an infant who was picked for jury duty, but needed to break periodically to pump her breast-milk.  Unfortunately, for her and the parties, she was uncomfortable discussing her needs with the judge and attorneys who were all men.  So, although they thought they were accommodating her needs, she only got part of what she required to the detriment of at least one party and perhaps justice:

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Playboy Enters. Int'l., Inc. v. 3E Trading, LLC, No. 07 C 1111, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Apr. 30, 2007) (Shadur, J.).*

Judge Shadur struck defendant's answer sua sponte, with leave to file an amended answer.  Plaintiff Playboy Enterprises International ("Playboy") alleged in its Complaint that the parties entered a series of agreements (the "Agreements") pursuant to which defendant 3E Trading ("3E") was licensed to use various Playboy trademarks in connection with the sale of specifically defined categories of products -- for example money clips, lamps, glassware and bar accessories.  But Playboy contended that 3E continued selling the previously licensed products after the Agreements expired.  3E answered the Complaint (here is a copy of the Answer), as many defendants do, with numerous blanket denials and Fed. R. Civ. P 8(b) statements that 3E lacked sufficient knowledge or information to admit or deny the allegations.  The Court identified numerous paragraphs that it did not believe could be denied for lack of information with the good faith required by Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(b).  For example, the Court held that 3E must have had some knowledge by virtue of its entry into the Agreements as to at least some of the statements made in paragraphs 6 and 7 identifying certain marks allegedly owned by Playboy and the fact that the marks were valuable.  The Court did not identify all of the deficiencies it found, but warned that answers such as this one "tend to defeat the entire purpose of notice pleading."  The Court required, as noted above, that 3E amend its answer and required that 3E's counsel:  1) not charge 3E for amending the Answer; and 2) copy the Court on a letter to 3E explaining that they will not be charged for the amended Answer.

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Bucciarelli-Tieger v. Victory Records, Inc., No. 06 C 4258, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. May 17, 2007) (Moran, Sen. J.).

Judge Moran granted plaintiffs a preliminary injunction preventing defendants from interfering with plaintiffs' right to record new music with producers or record labels of plaintiffs' choice.  The Court also denied defendants an opposing preliminary injunction that would have prevented plaintiffs from recording new music with anyone other than defendants.  Plaintiffs are members of an Ohio-based band called Hawthorne Heights (collectively "HH") -- in addition to clicking on "Hawthorne Heights" to go to the band's website, you can also read about them on Wikipedia, listen to them online or see them live June 12th in Urbana, Illinois's Canopy Club.  HH entered into a contract (the "Agreement") with defendants to produce and promote four albums.  The first album was created and promoted seemingly without incident, but just before release of the second album the relationship soured.  HH sent defendants a letter which purported to terminate the Agreement and listed several ways that defendants had allegedly harmed HH.  This suit arose from that dispute.  Plaintiffs allege breach of contract, as well as copyright and trademark infringement for promotions and sales after the date of HH's letter allegedly terminating the Agreement and related state law claims.  In a prior opinion (discussed in the Blog's archives), the Court held that the Agreement was not exclusive because it did not contain any exclusivity provisions, which left HH free to record other songs or records with another company during the life of the Agreement.  Based upon the Court's ruling, HH moved the Court for a preliminary injunction confirming that defendants could not interfere with any of HH's efforts to record new music with a third party.  Defendants cross-moved to prevent HH from working with anyone but defendants.  The Court held that HH showed a likelihood of success on the merits based upon the Court's prior ruling that the Agreement was not exclusive.  Similarly, the Court held that defendants did not show a likelihood of success in light of the same ruling.  Because defendants had no likelihood of success, their motion for a PI was denied.  Defendants argued that HH could not base a motion for preliminary injunction upon claims for declaratory relief, but the Court held that numerous courts had granted preliminary injunctive relief based upon claims for declaratory judgment.

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Trading Techs. Int'l., Inc. v. eSpeed, Inc., No. 04 C 5312, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. May 17, 2007) (Moran, Sen. J.).

Judge Moran denied plaintiff Trading Technologies' ("TT") motion to compel additional production from third party Chicago Mercantile Exchange ("CME").  TT served CME with a subpoena seeking, among other things, anything referring or relating to potential prior art to the patents at issue and communications between CME and any other entity regarding the patents at issue, including any joint defense agreement between CME and such parties.  After TT filed the motion to compel, CME produced thousands of pages, including what it stated were all documents in its possession regarding possible prior art.  Because all prior art documents had been produced, the Court denied TT's motion to compel additional prior art-related documents.

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The Wall Street Journal print edition had an interesting article about a new trend in defending lawsuits that focused on an IP dispute -- A Growing Dispute:  Fertilizer Start-Up Uses Web as Defense (subscription required).  The article discusses TerraCycle Inc.'s use of a website (www.suedbyscotts.com) to bolster its defense of a lawsuit Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. filed against TerraCycle alleging trade dress infringement and false advertising.*  According to the article, TerraCycle has not raised much money from its online solicitation for defense fund donations.  But during the first four weeks of its online defense, TerraCycle's sales jumped 122%, as opposed to 31% during the same period last year.  TerraCycle also saw a corresponding spike in visits to its primary website.  The WSJ Law Blog picked up on the story and developed it further, identifying several other defendants that have used websites as an aspect of their defense strategies, including Vonage's site (www.freetocompete.com) developed in connection with its prominent patent dispute.

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Trading Techs. Int'l., Inc. v. eSpeed, Inc., No. 05 C 4120, (N.D. Ill. May 16, 2007) (Moran, Sen. J.).

Judge Moran granted in part and denied in part plaintiff Trading Technologies' ("TT") motion to compel additional production from defendants GL Consultants, Inc. and GL Trade SA (collectively "GL").  The Court required GL to update certain interrogatory responses and to produce documents based upon an earlier priority date that GL had argued for, as opposed to stopping at the later priorit date alleged by TT.  The Court also required GL to provide TT access to original source code and certain electronic archives, without regard to whether TT had provided GL similar access.  Finally, the Court denied TT's request to lower the confidentiality designation of the source code for GL's "GL Tradepad" software.  But what is most interesting about the Court's opinion is its reminder to the parties about how the Court expects them to conduct discovery:

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Last week Chief Judge Holderman delivered the annual State of the Court Address, it was his first after becoming Chief Judge last summer.  According to the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin (subscription required) he explained that the Northern District was doing very well and touched on, among others, the following subjects:

• By the end of 2007, parties should be able to file complaints and pay filing fees electronically.
  
• The Northern District plans to update its website later this year.  To that end, anyone with an e-filing account should expect a letter from Judge Holderman this fall soliciting suggestions to improve the website -- www.ilnd.uscourts.gov.
  
• The Northern District's filings were down slightly from 2005 (7,606 cases filed in 2006 compared to 7,805 in 2005).  But if student loan and mortgage foreclosure actions are removed, filings jumped 17% from 2005 to 2006.
  
• The Northern District is the seventh fastest district court based upon the time from filing to disposition of civil cases -- 6.5 months.
  
• The Northern District has instituted criminal background checks of prospective jurors, after three jurors in former Governor Ryan's 2006 criminal trial failed to disclose their criminal records or arrests during the jury selection process.

You can also read the Northern District's summary of the speech here.

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Funny Cide Ventures, LLC v. Miami Herald Publishing Co., No. 4D06-2347, Slip Op. (Fla. 4th Dist. May 16, 2007).

Funny Cide Ventures is not a Northern District opinion, nor is it about intellectual property, but it is worth reading.  In a two-page per curiam opinion, the appellate panel dismissed Funny Cide Venture's ("FCV") claims of injurious falsehood against defendants the Miami Herald and Knight-Ridder.  FCV's horse Funny Cide won the Kentucky Derby in 2003.  After the race, the Miami Herald falsely reported that Funny Cide's jockey admitted carrying something during the race and implied that the jockey had cheated by carrying an illegal, battery-operated device perhaps to shock Funny Cide.  Funny Cide and his jockey went on to win the Preakness Stakes with a substantial lead over the field, completing two-thirds of the Triple Crown.  But they lost the final race at Belmont and, with it, the Triple Crown.  FCV filed suit against defendants claiming that the Miami Herald's erroneous story caused the jockey to run Funny Cide too hard at the Preakness in an effort to prove his and Funny Cide's superiority and, therefore,  their innocence.  As a result of that effort, Funny Cide lost at Belmont and, therefore, lost the revenue generated by a Triple Crown winner.  The Court held that despite the "novelty and creativity" of the claims, the loss was not a direct result of defendants' article.

While the opinion is timely (the Preakness was run last weekend), what is most interesting about it is Judge Farmer's concurring opinion.  His concurrence does not make any novel legal arguments or take issue with the substance of the per curiam decision.  Instead, it leads with an argument against "dreary," "tedious" and unnecessarily long judicial opinions.

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Vanguard Prods. Group, Inc. v. Diam USA, Inc., No. 05 C 1323, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. May 16, 2007) (Bucklo, J.).*

Judge Bucklo granted plaintiffs summary judgment of infringement and denied defendants summary judgment of invalidity.  The Court first construed the two claim terms at issue -- "electrically coupled" and "via the modular connector."  In both cases, the Court adopted the plaintiffs' construction after a detailed review of the intrinsic and extrinsic evidence.  Because neither term was in the original application or appears in the specification, the intrinsic evidence focused on the use of the terms within the claims.  Defendants also attempted to use claim language from a parent application to support their constructions, but the Court held that the prosecution of a term in a parent application generally does not limit different terms in its progeny.  In the instant case, the Court found that the parent application had used the broader term "electrical connection" instead of "electrically coupled" which weighed against defendants' construction.  Having ruled in plaintiffs' favor on the claim construction, the Court held that defendants' products infringed the asserted claims of plaintiffs' patents.  And the Court held that defendants' asserted prior art did not anticipate plaintiffs' patents.

*  Because I beat Westlaw on this one, you can access a copy of the Court's opinion here.  Please note that the Court issued a subsequent order modifying the opinion by deleting footnotes three and four, which were not intended to be part of the opinion.

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Murata Mfg., Ltd. v. Bel Fuse, Inc., __ F.R.D. __, 2007 WL 1317100 (N.D. Ill. May 2, 2007) (Cole, Mag. J.).

Judge Cole granted in part defendants' motion to compel the testimony of plaintiff's former employee, Sakamoto, who was a named inventor on the patent in suit residing in Japan.  Earlier in the litigation, defendants argued for a longer discovery period because of the time it would take to secure Sakamoto's deposition.  But through a series of miscommunications, delays and unfortunate circumstances, defendants had not been able to secure  Sakamoto's agreement to be deposed, in Japan or elsewhere, until near the close of discovery.  As a result, defendants filed the instant motion to compel plaintiff to produce Sakamoto for deposition in the United States either as a managing agent pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 30(b)(1) or based upon language in the patent assignement document which obligated Sakamoto to aid plaintiff in patent-related matters.  As an initial matter, the Court denied plaintiff's request to dismiss the motion for failure to meet and confer pursuant to Local Rule 37.2.  The Court explained that based upon the parties' history on the issue, compliance would have been futile and, therefore, it excused defendants' alleged non-compliance.

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Morton Grove Pharms., Inc. v. Nat'l. Pediculosis Assoc., __ F. Supp.2d __, 2007 WL 1302971 (N.D. Ill. May 3, 2007) (Bucklo, J.).

Judge Bucklo granted defendants' motion and dismissed plaintiff's deceptive trade practices case for lack of personal jurisdiction.  Defendants' sporadic contacts with Illinois did not confer general jurisdiction.  Plaintiff manufactures a line of lotions and shampoo which are FDA-approved for treating lice and scabies.  Defendants are a Michigan non-profit group, Ecology Center, Inc., and related individuals (collectively the "Center"), as well as the National Pediculosis Association which is not a party to the motion to dismiss.The Center mailed two newsletters related to passage of Michigan legislation to approximately 19,000 addresses of which 44 were in Illinois.  99% of the Center's donors were from Michigan, with just .23% from Illinois (18 Illinois-based donors total).  The Center's strongest ties to Illinois consisted of two donations totaling $270,000 from an Illinois-based foundation and an interactive website which accepts donations, although none have come from Illinois.  The Court held that these occasional contacts did not rise to the level of continuous and systematic, as required for general jurisdiction.

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Late last week, President Bush signed the appointment papers for the Northern District's newest judge, the Honorable Frederick J. Kapala.  Judge Kapala was sworn-in late last week and is sitting in the Northern District's Western Division.  Here is some biographical information about Judge Kapala from the Northern District's announcement of his appointment:

Judge Kapala graduated from Marquette University and received his law degree from the University of Illinois in 1976. He served as an Assistant State’s Attorney and then went into private practice, where he was appointed as a Special Assistant Attorney General to manage consumer fraud cases in Northern Illinois. He began his judicial career in 1982 as an Associate Judge in Illinois’ 17th Judicial Circuit, serving as Presiding Judge of the Juvenile Court from 1989 to 1991. Judge Kapala was elected a Circuit Judge in 1994 and appointed Presiding Judge of the Criminal Division one year later. In 2001, Judge Kapala was assigned to the Appellate Court of Illinois, Second District, where he served on the Illinois Judicial Conference Committee on Discovery Procedures and the Illinois State Judicial Inquiry Board. Judge Kapala is a captain in the U.S. Army.

Welcome to the Northern District Judge Kapala.

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CertainTeed Corp. v. Williams, __ F. Supp.2d __, 2007 WL 1297165 (N.D. Ill. Apr. 3, 2007) (Holderman, C.J.).

Pursuant to a remand and forthwith mandate from the Seventh Circuit, Chief Judge Holderman preliminarily enjoined defendant, Williams, from continued employment by plaintiff's competitor, IKO Industries, Inc. ("IKO"), based upon a non-compete agreement ("Agreement") defendant signed with his previous employer, CertainTeed Corp. ("CT").  But the Court made clear that the preliminary injunction violated defendants' right to due process and violated the Erie doctrine.  When Williams began working for CT, he signed the Agreement which required, among other things, that for one year after working for CT, Williams not perform work:  (i) regarding any product, process or service that is competitive with or similar to any product, process or service Williams was involved with at CT; or (ii) regarding any product, process or service of CT's for which Williams had access to CT's confidential information during his employment.  After leaving CT's employ, Williams took a position with IKO.  Based upon that employment, CT sued Williams and sought a preliminary injunction to prevent Williams's continued employment by IKO.

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The Seventh Circuit has launched a wiki.  The Wiki is intended to focus on the most difficult portion of practice for those not regularly practicing in a particular jurisdiction -- procedure.  The site is largely broken down by the Seventh Circuit's Rules and allows for practitioners to create an account and add their insights into the implementation of each rule.  It is already an excellent resource.  Much of the early content focuses on briefing requirements.  For example, after the break is a portion of the wiki regarding the formatting of headings that gives insight into what the Seventh Circuit judges might prefer.

Perhaps the Northern District should consider a wiki.

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Trading Techs. Int'l., Inc. v. eSpeed, Inc., No 04 C 5312, 05 C 1079, 05 C 4088, 05 C 4120, 05 C 4811 & 05 C 5164, 2007 WL 1302765 (N.D. Ill. May 1, 2007) (Moran, Sen. J.).

Judge Moran granted in part and denied in part plaintiff Trading Technologies' ("TT") motion to compel production of defendants' communications between themselves (more on this case in the Blog's archives).  Defendants asserted claims of attorney-client and work product privileges regarding various communications and information exchanged as part of a joint defense agreement among, at least, the various defendants and DJ-plaintiff (collectively "defendants") in the patent suits regarding TT's patents.  The Court explained that the joint defense privilege protects communications and exchange of information between parties that have expressly decided to cooperate in a litigation -- with or without a written agreement.  The Court held that defendants had expressed a sufficient intent to cooperate in their respective litigations against TT and, therefore, held that defendants need not produce communications made in relation to their joint defense.  The Court required that defendants produce any written joint defense agreement or, in the absence of a written agreement, the identities of all members of the joint defense.  The Court further held that third parties need not be identified to the extent that their identities are protected as work product, but that third parties should be identified if defendants' communications with them are allegedly protected by attorney-client privilege.  The Court also required that defendants produce all prior art in their possession, regardless of how it was located.  And finally, the Court noted that "it must rely on the integrity of counsel to determine what is and is not privileged."  As a result, the Court required that defendants produce "any communications not protected by a legitimate privilege . . . ."

You can download the opinion here.

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According to yesterday's Chicago Daily Law Bulletin -- Trial Courts May Take on Patent Cases (subscription required, but a free, 15-day trial is available) -- the Northern District of Illinois judges are split on the value of  a proposed pilot program.  The program would provide judges who volunteer to take patent cases with extra training and the assistance of specialized law clerks.  Cases would continue to be randomly assigned.  But after a patent case was randomly assigned, if the assigned judge rejected the case it would be reassigned to a judge participating in the patent program.

Chief Judge Holderman is a proponent of the pilot program.  Chief Judge Holderman explained that the system would benefit the patent bar and that is not new to the federal courts because senior judges already have the option of rejecting cases, which are then reassigned.   You can read more about Chief Judge Holderman's views on patent litigation in the district courts in an article he recently authored with his law clerk, Halley B. Guren, advocating, among other things, providing district judges with specialized patent training and reassigning patent cases to those judges -- "The Patent Litigation Predicament in the United States."*

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Scholz Design Inc. v. Jaffe, __ F. Supp.2d __, 2007 WL 1276910 (N.D. Ill. Apr. 24, 2007) (Grady, J.).

Judge Grady treated plaintiff's untimely motion to reconsider as a Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b) motion to vacate judgment (Judge Grady's previous order is discussed in the Blog's archives) and denied the motion because it simply rehashed previously rejected arguments.  After a bench trial, the Court entered judgment on behalf of defendants because they had neither directly nor contributorily infringed plaintiff's copyrighted home design.  The Court held that, while defendants approved the design, any actual copying of the copyrighted design was done by defendants' architects without defendants knowledge.  In the instant motion, plaintiff argued that defendants infringed its copyrighted designs as a matter of law because the Court had deemed admitted -- for failure to respond to requests for admission -- that the interior and exterior designs of the house at issue were derivative works based upon plaintiff's design.  But the Court explained that the admission of infringement did not include an admission as to which parties committed the infringement.  As a result, the Court denied plaintiff's motion and allowed its prior judgment to stand.

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Leapfrog Enterprises, Inc. v. Fisher-Price, Inc., No. 06-1402, Slip Op. (Fed. Cir. May 9, 2007).

The Federal Circuit issued its first opinion analyzing an obviousness determination based upon the Supreme Court decision in KSR v. Teleflex, 550 U.S. __, 2007 WL 1237837 (2007).  The Court affirmed the district court's holding that the claim was invalid based upon obviousness and explained that obviousness is not determined by "a rigid formula disassociated from the consideration of the facts of a case."  You can download a copy of the Federal Circuit's decision here.

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Black & Decker, Inc. v. Robert Bosch Tool Corp., No. 06 C 4440, 2007 WL 1232089 (N.D. Ill. Apr. 25, 2007) (Manning, J.).

Judge Manning granted defendant's, Robert Bosch Tool Corp. ("Bosch") Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(c) motion for judgment on the pleadings, holding that plaintiff's, Black & Decker ("B&D"), patent infringement claims against Bosch's new product regarding B&D's previously asserted patents were barred by res judicata.  In the prior case before Judge St. Eve (numerous prior opinions are discussed in the Blog's archives), B&D asserted that two models of Bosch's Power Box radio (the "Old Power Box") infringed B&D's two patents (the "Old Patents").  Shortly before trial before Judge St. Eve, B&D brought the instant suit against Bosch asserting that Bosch's new model of its Power Box radio (the "New Power Box") infringed a third patent (the "New Patent").  At about the same time, B&D sought leave to present evidence at trial before Judge St. Eve that the New Power Box infringed the Old Patents.  Judge St. Eve, however, held that B&D had not disclosed the New Power Box as an accused product and that Bosch would be prejudiced by adding it immediately before trial.  After the trial before Judge St. Eve, the jury returned a verdict that the Old Power Boxes willfully infringed certain claims of the Old Patents.

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Abbott Labs. v. Sandoz, Inc., No. 07 C 1721, Slip op. (N.D. Ill. May 3, 2007) (Anderson, J.).

Judge Anderson denied plaintiffs'  motion for a preliminary injunction to prevent defendants Sandoz, Inc. ("Sandoz") and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Ltd. ("Teva") from selling a generic version of plaintiff Abbott Laboratories' ("Abbott") antibiotic cefdinir, which it markets using the name Omnicef.  Plaintiffs' original patent, U.S. Patent No. 4,559,334 (the "'334 patent"), covering a form of cefdinir expired on Sunday, May 6, 2007 at 10:59 p.m. CDT.  Plaintiffs' second patent, U.S. Patent No. 4,935,507 (the "'507 patent"), covering a crystalline cefdinir, does not expire until December 4, 2011.  Plaintiffs argued that Sandoz's and Teva's respective formulations of cefdinir (the "accused products"), which the parties agree can be classified as cefdinir monohydrate, infringed the '507 patent and, therefore, sales of the accused products should be enjoined.  The Court, with agreement of the parties, adopted a prior claim construction from Judge Payne of the E.D. Virginia for purposes of the PI determination.  Using Judge Payne's construction, the Court held that the accused products did not likely infringe the '507 patent.  First, cefdinir monohydrate only displayed four of the seven peaks in an x-ray diffraction pattern that the '507 patent identified as indicative of crystalline cefdinir within the +/-.1 degree margin of error that the Court determined was the proper construction of the '507 patent's "about" qualifier.  Second, the Court held that "trace" amounts of crystalline cefdinir that were allegedly in the accused products in addition to the cefdinir monohydrate did not likely amount to literal infringement.

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Ortho-Tain, Inc. v. Rocky Mountain Orthodontics, Inc., No. 05 C 6656, 2007 WL 1238917 (N.D. Ill. Apr. 25, 2007) (Leinenweber, J.).

Judge Leinenweber granted plaintiff's Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(f) motion to strike, dismissing without prejudice defendants' respective patent misuse affirmative defenses and all patent-related statements in defendants' counterclaims.  Plaintiff, Ortho-Tain ("OT"), sued Rocky Mountain Orthodontics ("RMO") and Planmeca Oy ("Planmeca") alleging that RMO breached the distributorship agreement between the OT and RMO.  Pursuant to the Agreement, OT manufactured dental appliances (allegedly covered by OT's patents) and RMO sold those appliances in France.  RMO allegedly breached the Agreement by sourcing equivalent dental appliances from Planmeca.  RMO counterclaimed for, among other things, declaratory judgment of noninfringement and unenforceability of OT's relevant United States patents.  The Court previously dismissed defendants' patent-related declaratory judgment counterclaims for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.  OT now argues that the Court should strike RMO's and Planmeca's respective patent misuse affirmative defenses because they are insufficient.  The Court first held that patent misuse was a proper affirmative defense, negating the first prong of a Rule 12(f) analysis. 

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Super Wash, Inc. v. Allen, No. 06 C 50169, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Apr. 20, 2007) (Mahoney, Mag. J.).

Magistrate Judge Mahoney recommended dismissing one group of defendants' ("Genecor defendants") motion to enforce the settlement agreement and the other group's ("MJR defendants") motion for judgment and sanctions.  Plaintiff alleged that defendants infringed its trademarks related to its "Super Wash" car washes, engaged in Lanham Act unfair competition, falsely designated its origins pursuant to the Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act and related state law claims.  Shortly after the case was filed, it was stayed to allow settlement discussions and a settlement conference was held by the Court.  At that conference the parties agree that an agreement was reached, but disagree as to its scope and power.  Plaintiff alleged that a settlement had been reached on some terms subject to resolving the remaining terms and memorializing the agreement in writing.  The defendants, on the other hand, all agree that a binding settlement was agreed to and read aloud by the Court.  Defendants agreed that they were required to:  1) pay plaintiff a sum of money; 2) stop using plaintiff's marks; 3) provide plaintiff reasonable assistance in removing the marks from the internet, phone books, etc. and 4) were not required to admit liability.  But the Genecor defendants believe the agreement stipulated that neither the settlement agreement or any discovery from the case could be used in a pending state court case.  The MJR defendants believe there was no limitations on the use of information from or about the instant case in the pending state court case.  The Court, therefore, held that it could not grant defendants' motions to enforce the agreement or enter sanctions related to it.  There was no evidence of a meeting of the minds as to the use of information from the case in the state court case, which was a material term of the agreement.  And Illinois law required a meeting of the minds on a settlement's major terms in order to have an enforceable oral settlement agreement.

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The Chicago Tribune ran a story on the front page of Wednesday's Business section about the use of trademarks in keyword internet advertising:  Trademark Battlefield.  The story discussed various efforts to stop internet search engines (like those offered by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft) from selling trademarked terms as search keywords.  For example, the story suggested that State Farm, an insurance company, may have purchased the name of its chief competitor, Allstate, from Google.  As a result, if you google "Allstate" Allstate's websites will come up first in the search results, but in the upper right corner of the search results page, you will see a State Farm ad. 

The story also discussed comments from a Google trademark lawyer, Rose Hagan, during a standing-room-only panel at the International Trademark Association's ("INTA") meeting on Monday, which was held in Chicago.  Hagan said that Google sells advertising space, not trademarks.  The story also notes that Utah has passed a law which prohibited the use of a competitor's trademarks as advertising keywords.  For more on the Utah law, check out Eric Goldman's Technology & Marketing Law Blog (via Marty Schwimmer's Trademark Blog).  The Utah law and the various lawsuits against Google, Yahoo and Microsoft on this issue are all evidence that this is a very unsettled area of trademark law.  A Yahoo attorney, Laura Hauck Covington, explained that "[w]e're all trying to find the right, reasonable balance for the owners of trademarks, consumers and advertisers."

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Gencor Pacific, Inc. v. Nature's Thyme, LLC, No. 07 C 167, 2007 WL 1225362 (N.D. Ill. Apr. 24, 2007) (Kocoras, J.).

Judge Kocoras granted defendants' Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(2)&(3) motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and venue and dismissed the case.  Plaintiff brought this Lanham Act false advertising and copyright infringement case alleging that defendants used portions of plaintiff's copyrighted studies regarding the efficacy of a weight-loss and appetite suppressant containing Caralluma Fimbriata extract.  Defendants, a business and two individuals employed by the business, were residents of New Jersey and had a single sale to an Illinois customer, valued at $300.  Defendants only other contacts with Illinois were an interactive website accessible in Illinois and the fact that one or two of defendants' general solicitations may have been sent to Illinois.  Defendants did not own property in Illinois and there was no proof that any defendants sent any of the allegedly infringing information to Illinois.  The Court held these contacts were not sufficient to create either general or specific jurisdiction.  The Court also held that venue was not proper in the Northern District of Illinois because defendants were not residents of Illinois and the acts at issue in the suit did not occur in the Northern District.