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

Autotech Techs. Ltd. Partnership v. Automationdirect.com, Inc., No. 05 C 5488 2008 WL 783301 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 25, 2008) (Cole, Mag. J.).*

Judge Cole granted in part defendant Automationdirect.com's ("ADC") motion to compel additional records from plaintiff Autotech's database. The parties agreed that an ADC expert would be allowed to develop queries which Autotech would run on its database. After a dispute regarding how to produce the results of the search, the Court ordered production of the documents, which related to records of, among other things, customer confusion. Upon review of the records, ADC demanded that Autotech supplement them with information such as the date of the communication and the identity of the Autotech employees involved. Autotech eventually supplemented the documents with an index identifying, among other things, the identity of the Autotech employee involved in each communication, but not the dates of the communications. ADC moved to compel the production of all fields in Autotech's database for each entry identified by ADC's query. But Autotech countered that it had produced all fields generated by ADC's expert's query. Had the query generated all available fields, they, presumably, would have been produced them all. Because Autotech produced the information generated by ADC's search and supplemented that production with an index, sanctions were not warranted. But the Court did order production, at ADC's expense, of the dates of each communication. The Court also ordered the parties to meet and confer to determine how to produce the dates in a useful format.

*Click here for more of this case in the Blog's archives.

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Autotech Techs. Ltd. Partnership v. Automationdirect.com, Inc., No. 05 C 5488, 2008 WL 783303 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 25, 2008) (Cole, Mag. J.).*

Judge Cole granted in part plaintiff Autotech's motion to compel communications between defendant Automationdirect.com, Inc. ("ADC") and any third party regarding ADC's competing C-More touch screen panel. The Court held that ADC need not produce documents related to source code for the C-More product. The Court previously denied Autotech's motion to amend its complaint adding claims related to that source code. But the Court held that ADC's third party communications could be relevant to show whether ADC has complied with its contractual obligation to use its best efforts to sell Autotech's product, or if its C-More sales efforts interfered with sales of Autotech's products. The Court also held that any communication evidencing customer confusion must be produced.

Practice Tip: Do not employ new arguments in reply briefs. The Court did not consider Autotech's reply brief because it changed the scope of its argument on reply. Autotech's opening brief sought ADC's third party communications with the exception of those regarding ADC's source code because claims regarding ADC's software were not in the case. But on reply, Autotech also sought the source code related communications.

*Click here for more about this case in the Blog's archives.

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Watts v. Cypress Hill, No. 06 C 3348, 2008 WL 697356 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 12, 2008) (Ashman, Mag. J.).

Judge Ashman struck plaintiffs' expert report pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(c)(1). Plaintiffs' authored the song "Is It Because I'm Black" in 1968. Plaintiffs' alleged that defendants, the musical group Cypress Hill (click here for some of the group's music on their MySpace page), infringed their copyright in the song by using parts of it in their Black Sunday album. Cypress Hill contended that plaintiffs sold the copyright pursuant to a 1969 songwriters contract. Plaintiffs argued that the contract was a fraud.

Plaintiffs submitted an expert report (the "Report") to support that the contract was fraudulent. In six paragraphs, the expert stated that he ran various tests and concluded that the 1969 contract was a fraud because it was printed and signed by an inkjet printer — inkjet printers were developed in the 1970s or 1980s. When Cypress Hill complained that the Report was incomplete, plaintiffs supplemented it with pictures of the testing.

But the Court held that the supplemented Report was not sufficient because it did not explain the expert's methodology. There was no way to know how the expert translated data into conclusions. And no reputable rebuttal expert could test the expert's methodology or opine that the data was misinterpreted. It did not matter that the missing information could likely be obtained in a deposition. Rule 26 requires that an expert report include "the basis and reasons" for the expert's opinions. Because the Report did not disclose the expert's methodology and reasoning, and because Cypress Hill was prejudiced by the late-served, incomplete Report, the Court struck the Report.

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Murata Mfg. Co., Ltd. v. Bel Fuse, Inc., No. 03 C 2934, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Mar. 5, 2008) (Gottschall, J.).*

Judge Gottschall granted plaintiffs’ motion to strike defendants’ allegedly new reverse doctrine of equivalents non-infringement argument, which defendants withdrew in response to plaintiffs’ motion. But the Court denied the motion as to all other allegedly new arguments and as to defendants’ supporting affidavits. The Court held that defendants’ non-infringement arguments were sufficiently set out in their timely expert reports.

The Court also held that defendants’ expert affidavits, submitted with their summary judgment response briefs, were proper. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(e) specifically permits use of affidavits as support for summary judgment arguments. And defendants’ expert affidavits met the requirements for expert affidavits:

• The experts supported their conclusions by showing their reasoning; and
• The methodology met Daubert standards.

Finally, it did not matter that discovery was closed and that plaintiffs, therefore, would not be able to test the affidavits in a deposition. Plaintiffs cited no authority for the proposition that post-discovery affidavits were not permitted.

*Click here for more on this case in the Blog’s archives.

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Se-Kure Controls, Inc. v. Vanguard Prods. Group Inc., No. 02 C 3767, 2008 WL 169054 (N.D. Ill. Jan. 17, 2008) (Cox, Mag. J.).*

Judge Cox denied plaintiff’s motion to exclude defendants’ patent law expert witness, but placed limits on the expert’s testimony. The Court held that a patent expert’s testimony could aid the Court’s understanding of Patent Office procedures and of what would have been material to a reasonable patent examiner. But the patent law expert was not allowed to testify as to any legal conclusions. And the testimony would be given outside the jury’s presence to avoid any prejudice. Because the Court decides inequitable conduct, there was no need for the jury to hear the expert’s testimony.

* Click here for more on this case and related cases in the Blog’s archives. Also, note that this opinion also uses footnote citation.

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Shen-Wei (USA), Inc. v. Ansell Healthcare Prods., Inc., No. 05 C 6003, 2007 WL 2903184 (N.D. Ill. Sep. 28, 2007) (Guzman, J.).

Judge Guzman denied defendant’s motion for summary judgment of invalidity pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 102(b). Defendant argued that plaintiffs sold medical gloves embodying the claims of their patent, U.S. Patent No. 6, 953,582 (the “’582 patent”), to a glove with a coating of a skin-soothing substance in July 1999, approximately two years before the ‘582 patent’s July 1, 2001 critical date. Furthermore, plaintiffs admitted that they sold patented gloves as early as July 1999 by failing to cite any contradictory evidence in their responses to defendant’s Local Rule 56.1 statement.

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Trading Technologies Int’l, Inc. v. eSpeed, Inc., No. 04 C 5312, 2007 WL 2566291 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 29, 2007) (Moran, Sen. J.).

Judge Moran denied plaintiff Trading Technologies’ (“TT”) motion for a protective order to prevent depositions after the close of fact discovery and days before trial was scheduled to begin, although the Court did preclude one deposition. The Court held that defendant eSpeed could depose third party Lorin at Lorin’s convenience for no more than two hours. But eSpeed can only introduce Lorin’s testimony in support of its claim that the alleged prior art GL Win with Trade Pad software existed before the critical date (you can read more about the parties’ dispute over whether the GL Win with Trade Pad software invalidates TT’s patents in the Blog’s archives). The Court, however would not permit the deposition of third party Doug Moneison. TT relied upon Moneison’s declaration in opposing eSpeed’s GL Win with Trade Pad invalidity summary judgment motion. But in its reply brief, TT stated that it would not call Moneison at trial or directly rely upon his declaration. The Court, therefore, held that Moneison’s deposition was not necessary. The Court also allowed eSpeed to file an additional expert report regarding hard drives produced by third party Chicago Mercantile Exchange (“CME”) – CME’s production is discussed in the Blog’s archives – because the Court had been aware of the hard drives and their likely use at trial for some time. Finally, the Court denied TT’s request that evidence regarding GL’s Win with Trade Pad software be precluded at trial because of GL’s alleged failure to produce documents from its website regarding its software. The Court did, however, require that GL perform an additional word search of its website using terms specified by the Court and produce any additional materials found by the search.

Trial started the week of September 10. Expect to see several more opinions in this case and its related cases. Additionally, work has made it difficult for me to observe the trial, but I spent a few hours watching last week and will post some thoughts on it later this week.

*You can read much more about this case and related cases in the Blog's archives.

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Judge Nolan compelled defendant to provide complete answers, citing specific individuals, documents and things to plaintiff's fact-based contention interrogatories.  Plaintiff served defendant with contention interrogatory seeking to learn each basis for each of defendant's defenses and counterclaims relating to plaintiff's "ULTRA-LITE" and "Monster Tachometer" marks.  Defendant initially provided broad, non-committal answers and eventually supplemented including general statements directing plaintiff to defendant's document production without specifying any Bates ranges.

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Konvin Assocs. V. Extech/Exterior Techs., No. 04 C 2544, 2006 WL 2460589 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 21, 2006) (Kennelly, J.).

In this opinion, Judge Kennelly ruled on opposing summary judgment motions arguing invalidity and infringement issues.  As an initial matter, the Court refused to exclude opposing expert affidavits despite the fact that neither expert was disclosed as required by Rule 26(a)(2)(A).  The Court held that Rule 37(c) does not allow striking evidence based upon Rule 26(a) violations where the violation is harmless.  Because neither party argued that they were harmed by the failure to disclose the experts, the Court refused to exclude the expert affidavits.  The Court went on to deal with numerous invalidity and infringement issues, but I will focus on one more expert testimony issue.

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