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

OFA Royalties LLC v. Apne, No. 10 C 4237, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Jun. 17, 2011) (Dow, J.).

Judge Dow awarded plaintiffs (collectively "Quizno's") their attorney's fees of approximately $28k in this franchise and trademark case involving Quizno's restaurants. The Court held that the parties' franchise agreement required that a defaulting party pay the attorney's fees of the other party. Because Quizno's won its preliminary injunction motion and later won a final judgment against defendants, the agreement required that defendants pay Quizno's attorney's fees. And the Court awarded Quizno's its full fees request because defendants did not contest Quizno's motion for fees or its specific fees.
 

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Bobak Sausage Co. v. A & J Seven Bridges, Inc., No. 07 C 4718 Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. May 31, 2011) (Dow, J.).

After entering judgment for defendants, the Court granted defendants' unopposed bill of costs in this trademark case. The opinion is fairly vanilla, but it answers one question I get frequently: How much do you have to break down costs to support your bill of costs? Creating too much detail from summary bills can quickly eclipse the value of the average bill of costs. The Court answered that question as follows, with useful case cites:
 

Under Section 1920(4), the prevailing party is "not required to submit a bill of costs containing a description so detailed as to make it impossible economically to recover photocopying costs." Northbrook Excess & Surplus Ins. Co. v. Proctor & Gamble, 924 F.2d 633, 643 (7th Cir. 1991). Instead, the prevailing party need only provide the best breakdown obtainable from the records. See id.
 

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Genzyme Corp. v. Cobrek Pharms., Inc., No. 10 C 112 (N.D. Ill. Feb. 17, 2011) (Dow, J.).

Judge Dow used the Court's inherent power to grant plaintiff Genzyme's motion to stay the case pending the reexamination of Genzyme's patent related to its pharmaceutical drug Hectorol. The Patent Office had already issued an Office Action rejecting all of Genzyme's claims. The Court also noted that reexams were valuable, during the initial stages of a case, because they either remove an issue for trial, when claims are rejected, or focus the issue by providing the Court with the PTO's expert view on the claim issues. The Court noted that in this case only limited discovery had occurred -- no depositions had been taken -- and a trial date had not been set. Finally, it was the Defendant that filed the reexamination request and then opposed the motion to stay. And to the extent that the delay created by a stay would harm the Defendant, that was mitigated by the fact that the case(s) had already been pending for three years.
 

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Bone Care, Int'l v. Pen Tech Pharm., No. 08 C 1083, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Mar. 30, 2011) (Dow, J.).

Judge Dow denied defendants' (collectively "Pentech") motion for summary judgment of invalidity for lack of enablement and written description. The Court also denied plaintiff Bone Care International's cross-motion for summary judgment that the patent-in-suit was enabled by its specification, in this patent case involving methods of treating hyperparathyroidism that is secondary to end-stage renal disease. The parties finished briefing their cross-motions weeks before a bench trial began, including the issues in the motion. And by the time of the opinion, the parties had filed extensive post-trial briefing -- the Court allowed briefs up to 280 pages in length. As such and in light of its coming opinion ruling on all factual issues, the Court did not provide a detailed analysis of its reasoning. Instead, it focused on one of the most common hurdles to summary judgment, the battle of the experts. The parties' experts set forth competing views of the facts and circumstances on the case. Because both parties relied upon those experts to make their cases, summary judgment was not proper.

The Court, however, did commit to resolve the issues as part of its written trial decision.

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Trading Techs. Int'l., Inc. v. eSpeed, Inc., No. 04 C 5312, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Mar. 29, 2011) (Dow, J.).

Judge Dow amended the final judgment in this case to reflect the jury verdict and post-remittitur damages award of about $2.5M -- go to the Blog's archives for much more on this case and related cases. The Court also, after a de novo review, adopted Judge Schenkier's report and recommendation on the motion. Plaintiff Trading Technologies ("TT") sought to amend the Court's final judgment, entered by the late Judge Moran, pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e) or 60(a), to reflect the damages award, and sought its fees for bringing the instant motion. The Court held as follows:

• While it may have been too late to amend the judgment pursuant to Rule 59(e), the Court had discretion to amend pursuant to Rule 60(a) to correct an "oversight or omission." The record established that TT and defendants (collectively "eSpeed") understood that there was a money judgment. For example, eSpeed moved the Court to waive the supersedes bond normally required to appeal a case with money damages.
   
• The Federal Circuit and the parties understood the appeal to be on all issues, not just injunctive relief. As such, eSpeed cannot argue that it held back arguments on appeal, that it might otherwise have made if eSpeed had known the appeal went beyond injunctive issues.
   
• Whatever TT's reason for not seeking to correct the judgment with Judge Moran while the case was still pending before him, all parties understood that the judgment included the money damages.

Finally, the Court denied TT's request for it fees incurred bringing the motion. First, both parties should have sought to correct the judgment when it was entered. Second, TT's fee request was undermined by its unreasonable demand in the initial motion that eSpeed pay the money damages within five days.
 

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Labtest Int'l., Inc., d/b/a Intertek Consumer Goods N. Am. v. Centre Testing Int'l. Corp., No. 10C2897, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Feb. 1, 2011) (Dow, J.).

Judge Dow granted defendant CTI's Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(2) motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction in this copyright infringement action. The Court did not have jurisdiction over CTI:

• CTI was a Chinese entity with no U.S. offices.
   
• CTI's only possible contact with Illinois regarding the copyrighted subject matter was via its passive website.
   
• Plaintiff Intertek offered no proof that anyone from Illinois downloaded the allegedly infringing chart.
   
• CTI's only connection was work in China for an entity with a parent entity in Illinois.

The Court did not award Intertek its fees and costs for defending the case or the case filed by Intertek in Connecticut. Intertek had credible arguments for each, and it was not forum shopping even if the arguments were eventually proven wrong.
 

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Am. Taxi Dispatch, Inc. v. Am. GSS Limo, Inc., No. 10 C 5713, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Jan. 27, 2011) (Dow, J.).

Judge Dow gave defendants in this trademark infringement suit a deadline for obtaining counsel, or in the case of the individual defendants filing a notice of pro se representation. The Court reminded the defendants that corporate entities may not appear without counsel in federal courts. Finally, the Court warned defendants that they faced a potential default judgment if they did not act by the deadline.
 

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The Federal Bar Association - an excellent group that is worth joining (disclosure: I am a member) - recently held a panel of Northern District judges discussing their chambers and tips for counsel. Here are my notes regarding Judge Dow's comments:

• Judge Dow allows counsel to appear by phone; sometimes even encourages it for remote counsel and less complex hearings and status conferences.
   
• He started out writing all of his own opinions, but now writes some and has clerks draft some, with interaction as clerks have questions.
   
• For voir dire, Judge Dow uses a brief questionnaire tailored to the case, followed by follow- up questions from the Court and the counsel.
   

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Trading Techs. Int'l, Inc. v. eSpeed, Inc., No. 04 C 5312, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Oct. 29, 2010) (Dow, J.).

Judge Dow denied defendants' (collectively "eSpeed") motion to strike or stay consideration of plaintiff Trading Technologies' ("TT") bill of costs, and awarded TT $381,831.04 in costs.* Because TT received a damages award at trial, TT was the prevailing party and costs were warranted, absent TT's trial misconduct or eSpeed's inability to pay. The fact that TT lost on the issue of eSpeed's alleged willfulness did not change TT's status as the prevailing party, nor did the fact that eSpeed was found not to infringe based upon several of its software packages. The Court had previously stayed a determination of the bill of costs pending the Federal Circuit appeal. So, with the appeal complete, there was no reason left to delay the Court's decision.

The Court then turned to the bill of costs. The following determinations were of particular note:

The Court awarded all undisputed witness travel, attendance and subsistence costs, totaling approximately $21,000. The Court denied travel costs for a trial witness that was flown to trial from Switzerland, rather than from his home in Ohio. Witness fees are only allowed for the shortest possible route from the witness's residence.

The Court awarded videography costs only for depositions of foreign witnesses that TT disclosed as potential trial witnesses.

Court reporter appearance fees were denied because they are only allowed to the extent the fee plus the per-page rate charged does not exceed the Judicial Conference's limit. In this case, the per page rate was already more than the allowed per-page recovery.

Because hearing transcripts played a significant role in the case, the Court awarded TT the allowable hearing transcript fees.

The Court awarded 25% of TT's photocopying request. The reduction accounted for various non-copying charges, such as OCR, blowbacks, etc. and multiple copies of some documents. Recovery is only allowed for a single copy of a document, in most cases.

No costs were awarded for translation because § 1920(6) does not authorize recovery of translation costs, except for "check interpreters" used at trial to dispute certain interpretations.

The Court refused to apportion TT's costs based upon the portion of the case that eSpeed won (summary judgment of noninfringement) versus the jury award that TT won.

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

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Dental Arts Lab. V. Studio 360, The Dental Lab, LLC, No. 10 CV 4535, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Nov. 23, 2010) (Dow, J.).

Judge Dow denied defendant's Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b) motion to dismiss this Lanham Act dispute regarding plaintiff's 360 Dental Laboratories mark. Defendant was a Nevada entity which had sold product to sixteen Illinois dentists, making up 1.2% of defendant's gross revenue, and maintained a website that used the mark and offered defendant's products for sale. Plaintiff only argued that the Court had specific, not general jurisdiction. While defendant's contacts were minimal - sixteen customers and 1.2% of revenues - they involved the alleged tortious acts at issue. The sales, therefore, were sufficient minimum contacts to create specific jurisdiction. Although the Illinois sales were allegedly de minimus, each sale was allegedly a tortious act and the Court could have had jurisdiction based upon even one of the sales. Because defendant's venue arguments mirrored its jurisdiction arguments, venue was also proper.
 

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Bone Care Int'l, LLC v. Pentech Pharm., Inc., No. 08 C 1083, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Sep. 30, 2010) (Dow, J.).

Judge Dow decided the parties motions in limine in this patent infringement dispute. Of particular note, the Court made the following rulings:
 

• The Court allowed defendants' anticipation and written description invalidity defenses even though they were not properly disclosed or supported in defendants' interrogatory responses or expert reports. The anticipation defense was so intertwined with the disclosed obviousness defense that there was no prejudice. And the parties argued the written description defense as part of a summary judgment motion. The Court, however, excluded other undisclosed invalidity defenses.
   
• The Court allowed plaintiffs to present evidence regarding the priority date of one of its claims became there was a question of fact as to whether the claim had priority based upon an earlier, related application.
   
• Plaintiffs were allowed to call defendants' expert witnesses in plaintiffs' case-in-chief so long as the testimony was not just cumulative. Plaintiffs could also call defendants' experts. Even if defendants chose not to call them Defendants cannot turn an expert into a non-testifying expert pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(4)(B), once the expert issued a report and was listed on defendants' witness list.
   
• A parties' witnesses should be called live whenever possible, unless the witness is unavailable.
   
• Defendants' expert was allowed to add references after the expert report deadline and after his deposition, by identifying the references in a deposition errata sheet and in corrected expert report pages. The references did not significantly change the experts analysis. And plaintiffs questioned the expert about the references during his deposition. So, plaintiffs were not prejudiced.
   
• Defendants were also allowed to rely upon their experts' rebuttal and supplemental reports became the arguments in the reports all properly responded to Plaintiffs' reports.

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Bone Care Int'l, LLC v. Pentech Pharms., Inc., No. 08 C 1083, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Sep. 30, 2010) (Dow, J.)

Judge Dow issued an Order resolving the parties' dispute in the pre-trial joint status report regarding the order of proofs at trial, in light of defendants' stipulation of infringement. The Court ordered that:

1.  Defendant would present its burden of proof evidence regarding invalidity first, citing Howard T. Markey, On Simplifying Patent Trials, 116 F.R.D. 369 (1987). 
    
2. Plaintiffs will then respond to defendants' invalidity case and present evidence of any secondary considerations. 
    
3. Defendants will then be allowed to respond to the secondary consideration proofs and rebut, as appropriate, plaintiffs' validity proofs. 
    
4. Plaintiffs will be allowed a rebuttal case regarding its secondary consideration. 

The Court noted, however, that it would use its broad discretion pursuant to Fed. R. Evid. 611(a) to prevent either party from sandbagging the other with its respective rebuttal case.

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Only the First, Ltd. v. Seiko Epson Corp., No. 07 C 1333, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Sep. 29, 2010) (Dow, J.).

Judge Dow, having previously construed the claim of plaintiff's patent to a color printing system, granted defendant Seiko Epson Corp. ("SEC") summary judgment of noninfringement. Each claim required, among other colors, green-yellow ink. Plaintiff admitted that SEC's yellow did not fall within the Court's green-yellow construction.

Instead, Plaintiff argued that SEC's yellow was equivalent to the claimed green-yellow based upon the doctrine of equivalents because although SEC's yellow was a red-green the human eye perceived it as a yellow. But plaintiff's evidence only proved that SEC's yellow appeared yellow. Plaintiff had no evidence that SEC's yellow appeared green-yellow, the color of the relevant claim limitation. Regardless of the correctness of plaintiff's argument, therefore, plaintiff had not met its burden. And plaintiff could not use the doctrine of equivalents to expand green-yellow to all yellows.

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Only the First, Ltd. v. Seiko Epson Corp., No. 07 C 1333 & 09 C 4655, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Sep. 29, 2010) (Dow, J.).

Judge Dow construed the claims of plaintiff's patent covering a color printing system, and granted in part defendant's motion for summary judgment of indefiniteness. Of particular note, the Court construed the following terms:

• The Court, by agreement, construed the base colors - violet, blue, green, yellow, orange and red - using the same wavelengths the Court used in construing a related patent earlier in the case -- click here for that opinion in the Blog's archives.
   
• As in the prior constructions, the Court held that the components of component colors (e.g., red and orange for orange-red) must have the highest intensity of all the components. Otherwise, a color ordered red, orange, blue and violet could be both orange-red and violet-blue, a nonsensical result.
   
• The Court held that the patentee gave "intensity" the same "unconventional" meaning -- a synonym for "quantity" -- as in the prior constructions because the two patents share a specification and the claims did not define the term differently.
   
• The Court held that the term "peak reflectance percentage" used in claims 7 and 9 was not supported by the specification and, therefore, those claims were invalid because they contained new matter. While a new matter determination is a question of fact, no reasonable jury could find support for peak reflectance percentage in the specification, warranting summary judgment.
   
• "Peak intensity" and "dominant intensity" were both indefinite. Pursuant to the Court's construction of intensity, each color can only have a single intensity, rendering peak and dominant intensities nonsensical.
   
• The terms "cyan," "magenta," and "yellow" were indefinite to the extent that they were amenable to multiple constructions. The Court, however, used the narrowest possible constructions as follows: "cyan" was "green-blue"; "magenta" was "violet-red"; and "yellow" was "orange-yellow" or "green-yellow."
   
• "Each of a different color" was not indefinite. Color referred to the six claimed colors, as well as black and white. Shades of a color were not "different."

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Clarke v. Gregory, No. 09 C 7978, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Jul. 26, 2010) (Dow J.).

Judge Dow denied declaratory judgment plaintiff's motion to remand this case involving rights to two plays to state court. Plaintiff argued that her claim sounded in contract and therefore, should not have been removed to Federal Court. But plaintiff claimed rights in two plays, the first allegedly covered by the contract, and the second not. At a minimum, therefore, the claim for the second play sounded in copyright and was a federal question.

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Cyber Websmith v. Am. Dental Assoc., No. 09 C 6198, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Aug. 4, 2010) (Dow, J.).

Judge Dow granted defendants' Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss plaintiff's Lanham Act and Illinois Deceptive Trade Practices Act claims. Both were essentially reverse passing off claims - defendants allegedly represented plaintiff's website templates as their own. And reverse passing off claims based upon copyrighted works rarely survive preemption claims. Pleading consumer confusion was not enough to avoid preemption in this case.
 

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Cyber Websmith v. Am. Dental Assoc., No. 09 C 6198, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Aug. 4, 2010) (Dow, J.).

Judge Dow granted the parties' competing motions for extensions of fact discovery and the deadline for filing dispositive motions. While plaintiff's motion to extend fact discovery was filed after fact discovery had closed, the Court granted the extension because defendant did not meet its discovery obligations until after the close of fact discovery and because both parties continued to conduct discovery after fact discovery closed.

The Court also extended the dispositive motion deadline thirty days beyond the close of discovery. The extension allowed defendant's new counsel to "catch up" and both parties time to evaluate their positions after the close of fact discovery.   Finally, the Court cautioned the parties' counsel that they must appear at status conferences or face sanctions.
 

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GZ Gourmet Food & Beverages v. Radioactive Energy of Ill., No. 07 C 7110, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Aug. 31, 2010) (Dow, J.).

Judge Dow granted plaintiff's counsel's motion to withdraw contingent upon counsel serving plaintiff with the Order by certified mail. Plaintiff had not responded to counsel in several months and was several months overdue in responding to discovery requests. The Court denied defendant's motion for sanctions based upon that delay. Instead, the Court offered plaintiff one additional opportunity to hire substitute counsel and begin prosecuting its case. The Court warned that corporate entities cannot appear pro se in federal court. The Court also warned that failure to retain counsel and appear at the next status could result in sanctions up to dismissal of plaintiff's case.
 

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Merrill Primack v. Polto, Inc., No. 08 C 4539, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Jul. 8, 2010) (Dow, J.).

Judge Dow granted defendants' Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(2) motion to dismiss this Lanham Act case over plaintiff's "Credit Lifeline" mark for lack of personal jurisdiction. Plaintiff did not claim general jurisdiction, relying only upon specific jurisdiction. Defendants' only Illinois contacts were the sale of 212 books unrelated to the Credit Lifeline mark into Illinois. And defendants' offer for sale of its Credit Lifeline book via an interactive website could not alone create specific jurisdiction. Similarly, injury to intellectual property alone did not create jurisdiction based upon the effects test. Harm to the plaintiff in the jurisdiction did not satisfy the test by itself. Defendant's actions must have been intentional, aimed at the forum state and defendant had to know that plaintiff's harm was likely to be suffered. But there was no indication that defendant was even aware of plaintiffs' Credit Lifeline mark, or of plaintiff, from defendant's first use of the mark in 2001 until, at the earliest, when plaintiff registered its mark in 2008.

Finally, the Court held that there was no persuasive reason that exercising personal jurisdiction would have comported with "fair play and substantial justice." 

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Bone Care Int’l, LLC v. Pentech Pharma., Inc., No. 08 C 1083, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. June 4, 2010) (Dow. J.)

Judge Dow construed the claims in this patent infringement action related to methods for preventing bone mass loss using vitamin D. As an initial matter, the Court held that the person of ordinary skill in the court was someone in the field of kidney disease with either a Ph.D. or an M.D., adopting plaintiffs’ construction. Defendants’ argued that both a Ph.D. and an M.D. were required, but the parties agreed that the definition did not impact their respective arguments. Of particular interest, the Court construed the following terms:

• The Court declined to construe “lowering” or “lowered” because the parties did not contest that the constructions impacted claim scope, and their ordinary meanings were sufficient.
   
• “Serum parathyroid hormone” was construed as “blood concentrations of parathyroid hormone.”
   
• “Suffer from” was construed as “having” consistent with its ordinary meaning. The dictionary drew a distinction between suffering from and suffering with, which is associated with pain or discomfort from a condition.
   
• “Hyperparathyroidism” was construed consistent with medical dictionaries as “increased (i.e., above normal) secretion of PTH by the parathyroid gland."
   
• “End stage renal disease” was construed as “a disease wherein the patients’ kidneys no longer function at a level necessary to sustain life and thus require chronic dialysis or kidney transplantation.”
   
• “Effective Amount” was construed as “an effective amount of 1a-OH-vitamin D2 to lower and maintain lowered blood concentrations of PTH with a lower incidence of hypercalcemia than is associated with the extant conventional Vitamin D3 treatments.”

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Bone Care Int'l, LLC v. Pentech Pharms., Inc., No. 08 C 1083, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Apr. 23, 2010) (Dow, Jr.).

Judge Dow granted in part plaintiffs' motion to dismiss plaintiff's inequitable conduct affirmative defenses and corresponding counterclaim in this patent case related to a treatment for hyperthyroidism. The Court dismissed defendants' defenses and claims based upon infectious unenforceability. Defendants showed a relationship between the patents-in-suit and the earlier patents. But defendants did not meet the Fed.R.Civ.P. 9(b) pleading standards because they did not plead an "immediate and necessary" relationship between the patents-in-suit and the earlier patents in the family.

The Court denied the motion to dismiss as to prior art references that had been disclosed in earlier, related patent prosecutions, but not the prosecutions of the patents-in-suit. Defendants' allegations were sufficient to allow the Court to infer that the prior art references were intentionally withheld to avoid rejections similar to those from the earlier prosecutions based upon that prior art. It did not matter that defendants did not allege that the prior art references were not cumulative. Rule 9(b) pleading is designed to put the opposing part on notice, not to require the recitation of "certain magic words." The Court dismissed defendants' allegations regarding allegedly false statements to the PTO because other writings requested the applicant did not believe the statements to be false. 

Defendants' allegations regarding certain of plaintiffs' undisclosed articles were sufficiently plead. Defendants identified specific articles written by patentee, and plead that they were relevant and that patentee failed to disclose them. 

Finally, defendants sufficiently pled that plaintiff's submitted article made misleading statements about the state of the art. Among other reasons, the Court noted that the truth of the contested statements could not be decided upon a motion to dismiss. 

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Bobak Sausage Co. v. A & J Seven Bridges, Inc. d/b/a Bobak's Signature Events, No. 07 C 4718, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Apr. 26, 2010) (Dow, Jr.).

Judge Dow denied without prejudice defendants' Fed. R. Evid. 702 motion to exclude plaintiff's trademark survey expert in this Lanham Act case involving plaintiff's Bobak marks. Plaintiff's eight question survey was flawed. The survey's relevant universe was too broad. 

Metropolitan Chicago residents were surveyed, not just those in the market for the parties' products. The survey was also underinclusive because it excluded businesses, a large percentage of defendants' business. Additionally, the survey asked leading questions, and did not use the parties' visual marks. Finally, the survey used only minimal controls. 

Despite having identified technical defects in the survey, the Court did not exclude the survey. Although the defects substantially limited the usefulness of the survey, the survey was not one of the "rare" ones that are "completely unhelpful" to the trier of fact. But the Court stressed that its decision was preliminary. And the Court was more comfortable allowing a flawed survey because it was the trier of fact. 

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Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company v. Cadbury Adams USA LLC, Case No. 04 C 346, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Mar. 30, 2010) (Dow, Jr.).

Judge Dow denied plaintiff Wrigley's motion for reconsideration of the Court's opinion granting defendant Cadbury summary judgment of invalidity based upon anticipation and obviousness in this patent case regarding menthol-enhanced chewing gum. Because Wrigley originally only opposed the anticipation arguments by claiming the prior art was not enabling, the Court refused to consider any arguments unrelated to enablement. And the fact that the Court did not specifically address each of the seven undue experimentation factors in denying Wrigley's argument against invalidity was irrelevant. The Court was not required to consider every factor. And Wrigley did not specifically tie any of its original arguments to the factors. Finally, Wrigley never provided "meaningful evidence" showing the amount of experimentation that would have been required. The Court did not address Wrigley's arguments regarding obviousness because they sough to "re-hash rejected arguments."

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ImageCube LLC v. The Boeing Co., No. 04 C 7587, Slip Op. ( N.D. Ill. Jan. 22, 2010) (Dow, J.).

Judge Dow entered a final judgment as to defendant Boeing in this patent case and stayed the remaining claims pending a Federal Circuit appeal of the claim construction and summary judgment of Boeing's final judgment. The parties all agreed that the Court's claim construction and partial summary judgment ended the case as to Boeing. What was left of the case was the remaining defendants' affirmative defenses and noninfringement, invalidity and unenforceability counterclaims. "Mere defenses" are not sufficient to avoid a Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(b) final judgment. Once one defense is decided for defendant, additional defenses need not necessarily be considered. And the remaining counterclaims would all benefit, should they be tried upon remand, from the Federal Circuit's claim construction decision. An immediate appeal might also hasten resolution of the entire case. Plaintiff acknowledged that it was unlikely to pursue its claims if the Federal Circuit upheld the Court's claim construction.

Finally, the Court noted that defendants, over plaintiff's objections, sought and got the schedule they wanted addressing limited issues before full discovery. Defendants cannot, therefore, "complain too loudly" about seeking more definitive resolution of limited issues before turning to the remainder of the case.

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Rosenthal Collins Group, LLC v. Trading Techs. Int'l., Inc., No. 05 C 4088, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Sept. 18, 2009) (Dow, J.). 

Judge Dow denied the parties' cross-motions for summary judgment in this patent dispute regarding software for electronic futures trading using a static price axis.* Although the other related cases are stayed pending an appeal of the related eSpeed case to the Federal Circuit, declaratory judgment defendant Trading Technologies ("TT") sought and Judge Moran agreed to allow this case to proceed based upon TT's agreement that declaratory judgment plaintiff Rosenthal Collins Group ("RCG") infringed even under the Court's allegedly narrow construction of a "common static price axis" and "static display of prices." TT sought to broaden the constructions on appeal. The parties agreed on how the accused Onyx software operated. The price axis was generally dynamic. But if a user pointed a cursor in the window containing the axis, the axis became static until the cursor was removed or after thirty seconds, whichever came first. TT identified this as Onyx's order entry mode. And because Onyx has a static axis in order entry mode, TT argued that Onyx infringed based upon the order entry mode, even if it did not infringe in other modes. RCG argued that Onyx only had a single mode, and because the price axis was not consistently static, without manual recentering, there was no infringement. The Court held that whether Onyx operated in three modes and, therefore, infringed, or operated in a single mode and, therefore, did not was a question of fact. The case, therefore, was not appropriate for summary judgment.

The Court also stayed the case pending appeal of the eSpeed case, except for TT's motion for default and sanctions. 

*  Click here for much more on this case and its related cases in the Blog's archives.

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Bone Care Int'l., LLC v. Pentech Pharms., Inc., No. 08 C 1083, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Feb. 2, 2009) (Dow, J.).

Judge Dow denied defendants' motion to prevent plaintiffs from using their preferred technical experts in this patent case.  Pursuant to a Protective Order, plaintiffs notified defendants of their intent to provide three experts with confidential materials.  Defendants objected because defendants had previously retained the same experts in a different patent case in the Northern District.  The Court noted that disqualifying experts was a "drastic measure" taken only when the party seeking disqualification proves a substantial relationship between any acquired confidential information and the expert's testimony.  The two cases these experts were hired for involve different pharmaceutical formulations for treatment of different conditions.  And the experts testified that because of the different technologies, no information gained in defendants' earlier case could impact the present case or benefit defendants in this case.  Additionally, the Court noted that defendants did not have a confidential or privileged relationship with the experts.

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C.S.B. Commodities, Inc. v. Urban Trend (HK) Ltd., No. 08 C 1548, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Jan. 7, 2009) (Dow, J.).

Judge Dow granted corporate defendant Urban Trend's (“Urban Trend”) and denied the individual defendant's respective Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(2) motions to dismiss plaintiff's Lanham Act unfair competition and related state law claims for lack of personal jurisdiction. Plaintiff served the individual defendant, who was Urban Trend's president, while he was representing Urban Trend at a trade show in Illinois. The Court held that personal service created jurisdiction over the individual defendant, even though the Court may not have had jurisdiction but for personal service. And while the individual defendant was in Illinois as part of his job responsibilities representing Urban Trend at the trade show, the Fiduciary Shield Doctrine did not protect him. As Urban Trend's president, the individual defendant would have gained independent economic benefit from selling Urban Trend's products at the trade show. And as president, the individual defendant had at least some control over whether to sell or promote products in Illinois.

The Court, however, held that personal service upon Urban Trend's president was not sufficient to create jurisdiction over Urban Trend. And tradeshow attendance alone was not sufficient to create specific jurisdiction over Urban Trend. There was no evidence that Urban Trend's tradeshow efforts were particularly focused on Illinois sales, or that Urban Trend completed any sales.

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Mintel Int’l. Group Ltd. v. Neergheen, No. 08 C 3939, 2008 WL 2782818 (N.D. Ill. Jul. 16, 2008) (Dow, J.).

Judge Dow granted plaintiff a limited temporary restraining order (“TRO”) in this trade secret and non-compete case. After defendant gave plaintiff his notice of resignation from plaintiff’s marketing department, plaintiff began monitoring defendant’s computer use. This monitoring allegedly showed that defendant copied, emailed or printed various pieces of confidential information, including plaintiff’s client and vendor lists. Defendant then allegedly used those documents, in violation of defendant’s employment agreements, with defendant’s new employer, plaintiff’s alleged competitor.

The Court held that plaintiff had shown at least some likelihood of success regarding its trade secret misappropriation and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act claims based upon the alleged copying, emailing or printing of plaintiff’s client lists and other strategic documents. The Court also held that plaintiff showed a strong likelihood of success on elements of its breach of the non-compete and employment agreement claims. But the Court noted that it appeared likely that some provisions of the agreements were not enforceable.

The Court determined that plaintiff’s alleged harm would be irreparable – the use of plaintiff’s trade secret documents would result in lost sales and clients. Because plaintiff had shown a likelihood of success on the merits and irreparable harm, the Court entered a TRO. The Court ordered defendant and his agents not to use, reference or copy any documents misappropriated from plaintiff, and to return any such documents to plaintiff. The Court also enjoined defendant from soliciting any of plaintiff’s customers or clients whom defendant had contact with during the previous twelve months. And the Court enjoined defendant from soliciting plaintiff’s employees. The Court also ordered defendant to produce forensic copies of any of his personal computers.

But the Court did not enjoin defendant from working for his new employer. The Court noted that a TRO was an extraordinary remedy. And based on the available evidence, the Court was unwilling to use a TRO to end defendant’s employment, even for a limited period.

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According to Chief Judge Holderman during the annual state of the Northern District speech, the state of the Northern District is "good" -- click here for the Northern District's statement regarding the speech.  The Northern District was briefly at full capacity, between Judge Dow's appointment to the Northern District and Judge Filip's resignation to join the Department of Justice.  Other highlights of the presentation included:

• The Northern District remains in the top ten districts in terms of median time to civil case disposition at 6.2 months.
  
• Magistrate Judges Brown and Mahoney were reappointed to additional eight year terms; and
  
• The Northern District's 2007 civil case load remained nearly constant, falling only .5% from its 2006 level.

The Northern District's steady civil case load is especially impressive in light of the Seventh Circuit's reduced case load in 2007.  The Chicago Tribune's Ameet Sachdev reported -- click here for the story -- that the Seventh Circuit's Chief Judge Easterbrook, during his state of the Seventh Circuit speech, reported that the Seventh Circuit's case load dropped 10% for the second year in a row.  Sachdev noted that federal appellate court case loads had averaged a 5% drop per year since 2000.  And Easterbrook explained the Seventh Circuit's 10% drop for 2007 as based upon two primary factors:

• The Seventh Circuit's district courts saw an overall 6% drop in their case loads; and
  
• The Seventh Circuit's preference for bright line rules over totality of the circumstance tests made it easier for entities to settle their disputes, saying:

Rules make it easier for private parties to avoid litigation, or settle their disputes, without asking for appellate evaluation in every case.

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While Judge Filip heads to Washington as Deputy Attorney General, the Northern District has reassigned his cases — click here for the Executive Committee’s Order. At least the following IP cases have been reassigned:

Judge Andersen

1:07-cv-05666             Dicam, Inc. v. United States Cellular

Judge Dow

1:07-cv-02883             Kids Hope USA, Inc. v. Kids Hope United

Judge Kennelly

1:06-cv-05611             Liquid Dynamics Corporation v. Vaughn Co.

Judge Zagel

1:07-cv-03339             Borg Warner Inc. et al. v. Hilite International, Inc. et al.

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Prominent Consulting LLC v. Allen Bros., Inc., No. 07 C 6357, 2008 WL 373217 (N.D. Ill. Feb. 11, 2008) (Dow, J.).

Judge Dow held that the Court had jurisdiction over plaintiff Prominent Consulting’s (“PC”) copyright claim and denied defendant Allen Brothers’ motion to stay based upon Colorado River abstention. The Court had subject matter jurisdiction over PC’s copyright infringement claim – based on source code PC wrote for Allen Brothers’ websites – because the claim was not controlled solely by the parties’ contract. At least some of PC’s copyrights existed before the parties entered the contract because PC wrote some of the code before signing the contract.

The case appeared ripe for Colorado River abstention: the parties were involved in state court proceedings paralleling the federal case; both cases arose out of the parties’ website-related agreement; and PC’s available relief was identical in each case because PC’s late federal registration prevents statutory copyright damages. But the Court’s exclusive jurisdiction over the copyright claim prevented abstention. The Court cited Colorado River for the proposition that district courts lack discretion to stay cases involving exclusively federal claims.

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Late last week, President Bush signed the appointment papers for the Northern District's newest judge, the Honorable Robert M. Dow, Jr.  Judge Dow was sworn-in last Friday by Chief Judge Holderman and is sitting in the Northern District's Eastern Division.  Here is some biographical information about Judge Dow from the Northern District’s announcement of his appointment (click here for the announcement):

From 1993 to 1994, Judge Dow served as Law Clerk to The Honorable Joel M. Flaum of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Since 1995, Judge Dow has been employed at Mayer Brown, LLP, where he specialized in general and appellate litigation, with particular emphasis on telecommunications, state and federal constitutional law, jurisdiction, civil procedure, preemption, mass tort and products liability, admissibility of expert testimony, and class actions. Judge Dow has been acclaimed as a “superb” lawyer in the field of communications and technology law, as recognized by Chambers USA's Guide to America's Leading Business Lawyers. In his spare time, Judge Dow serves as Secretary for the Committee of Selection for the Rhodes Scholarships, State of Illinois, and on the Development and Academic Committees of Joliet Catholic Academy. Judge Dow was himself named a Rhodes Scholar in 1990. 

Judge Dow has had a distinguished academic career, with degrees from Yale University (B.A., 1987), University of Oxford (M. Phil. in International Relations, 1990; D. Phil. in International Relations, 1997), and Harvard Law School (J.D., 1993). While at Harvard Law School, in addition to graduating with honors, Judge Dow served as supervising editor of the Harvard Journal on Legislation, a member of the Editorial Board for the Harvard Human Rights Journal, and a Teaching Fellow at Harvard College.

Welcome to the Northern District Judge Dow. Judge Dow’s investiture ceremony is scheduled for Friday, January 11, 2008 at 4:00 pm.

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