Cumberland Pharms., Inc. v. Mylan Institutional LLC, No. 12 C 3846, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Oct. 2, 2015) (Pallmeyer, J.).

Judge Pallmeyer, after a bench trial, found that defendants (collectively “Mylan”) had not met their burden of proving plaintiff Cumberland’s ‘445 patent – to an intravenous treatment for suspected acetaminophen overdoses – was invalid

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.”

Continue Reading Summary Judgment Arguments Not Made Originally Not Reclaimable

Minemyer v. B-Roc Reps., Inc., No. 07 C 1763, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Oct. 27, 2009) (Cole, Mag. J.)*
Judge Cole granted summary judgment of invalidity based upon the §102(b) on-sale bar and denied summary judgment as to invalidity based upon §102(b) public use and obviousness.
Priority Date
Plaintiff argued that its pipe coupler patent was entitled to the priority date of its provisional application because the provisional application disclosed in the drawings the tapered threads at issue, although they were not described in the specification. The Court held that figures showing tapered threads would be sufficient, but that the figures did not show tapered threads. Plaintiff alleged that enlargements of the figures showed a 1% taper. But the Court held that the original drawing did not “convey” the tapered threads with “reasonable clarity.” Even the enlargement showed “no true tapers.” Because the provisional application did not disclose the taper, the patent’s priority date was its filing date.
On-Sale Bar
The Court held that plaintiff admitted he offered the patented couplers for sale more than one year before the filing date, also known as the critical date. Plaintiff also admitted both in interrogatory responses and at deposition that his invention had been reduced to practice at the time of the offer. Plaintiff claimed that the use was experimental, but the court held that the claim was not properly supported by evidence in plaintiff’s Local Rule 56.1 statement of material facts.
Public Use Bar
The Court denied summary judgment based upon the public use bar. The alleged prior art device was asserted against other claims in defendants’ invalidity contentions, but not against the claim at issue, claim 12. Furthermore, the evidence of the alleged prior art coupler was provided by a witness that was not disclosed in defendants’ Rule 26 disclosures or their interrogatory responses. He was first identified in a subpoena at the end of fact discovery.
Obviousness
Defendant’s obviousness arguments were based upon the same prior art as the public use bar prior art. So, summary judgment was not appropriate for similar reasons. Additionally, defendants arguments were cursory and did not even cite case law.
* Click here for more on this case in the Blog’s archives.

Continue Reading Patent Disclosure Includes the Specification and the Drawings

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.

Continue Reading No Colorado River Abstention in Copyright Cases

Trading Techs. Int’l, Inc. v. eSpeed, Inc., No. 04 C 5312, Min. Orders (N.D. Ill. Jan. 3, 2007) (Moran, Sen. J.).*
In addition to the willfulness decision discussed earlier today (click here for the post) and the invalidity decision that I will blog about early next week, Judge Moran also issued two minute orders deciding several of the outstanding post-trial motions. The Court denied defendant eSpeed’s motion for a new trial and its combined motion for judgment as a matter of law that: 1) the claims are invalid because of anticipation, obviousness, prior sale; and 2) because the claims have a June 9, 2000 priority date they were not infringed.
There are still several pending motions, including various motions regarding damages and interest on the jury’s award and eSpeed’s motion for an evidentiary hearing regarding inequitable conduct. I will keep you posted as those are decided.
* Click here to read much more about this case in the Blog’s archives.

Continue Reading Trading Technologies v. eSpeed: Minute Orders

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.Continue Reading The Power of Expert Testimony