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Morton Grove Pharms., Inc. v. Nat’l. Pediculosis Assoc., __ F. Supp.2d __, 2007 WL 4259422 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 30, 2007) (Bucklo, J.).
Judge Bucklo granted in part defendants Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(2) motion to dismiss and denied defendants’ motion to transfer the case to the Eastern District of Michigan. 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. 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 previously held that these contacts did not create general jurisdiction.*
The Court held that the Center’s act of sending even the two newsletters with the allegedly misleading and defamatory statements created specific jurisdiction over the Center. But the Court held that there was not specific jurisdiction over individual defendant William Weil. Weil’s name appeared in the newsletter, but he submitted an affidavit stating that he did not participate in mailing the newsletter and had no knowledge that it was being sent to any Illinois residents.
The Court did not transfer the case to the Eastern District of Michigan because the Center did not show that Michigan was clearly more convenient than the Northern District. Each party’s witnesses were in their preferred jurisdiction – the plaintiff’s in Illinois and the Center’s in Michigan – and the interests of justice are served by keeping the case in the Northern District. While median times to trial in both districts were comparable, plaintiff’s related, pending case in the Northern District made the Northern District the correct court to hear the case, even though the Court had severed the related case from this one.
* For discussion of the Court’s previous personal jurisdiction decision in this case, click here.
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Continue Reading Two Newsletters to Illinois Residents Create Specific Jurisdiction

Judges Coar, Gettleman, Kennelly and Lefkow are continuing their joint trial call (started in 2007, click here for the Blog’s post about it).* Each judge is contributing cases to the call, apparently at the judge’s discretion. The cases in the call will be tried in order by one of the five judges, although not necessarily the judge originally assigned the case. Each trial is expected to last no longer than five days and the attorneys and parties for a case on the call are expected to be ready for trial, including producing witnesses, on 48 hours notice. So far, I do not believe any IP cases have been put on the joint call. And I suspect that the five day trial limit will remove at least the typical patent case from the joint call, although plenty of trade secret, trademark and copyright cases could end up on it.
* Judge Bucklo was a part of the joint call last year, but is not listed this year.
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Continue Reading N.D. Ill. 2008 Joint Trial Call

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.
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Continue Reading Conspiracy Claim Based Solely on Trade Secrets Preempted by ITSA

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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Continue Reading Court Grants Summary Judgment of Infringement & Denies Invalidity

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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Continue Reading Defendants’ Sporadic Contacts Do Not Create Personal Jurisdiction

GMAC Real Estate, LLC v. E.L. Cutler & Assocs., Inc., 472 F. Supp.2d 960 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 20, 2006) (Bucklo, J.).

Judge Bucklo held that the Court lacked personal jurisdiction over defendant and dismissed plaintiff’s complaint.  Plaintiff, a franchiser of residential real estate brokerages, brought this suit alleging that defendant, a former franchisee, breached…

Chicago Tribune Co. v. Fox News Network LLC, No. 07 C 0865, 2007 WL 1052508 (N.D. Ill. Apr. 4, 2007) (Bucklo, J.).*

Judge Bucklo denied plaintiff Chicago Tribune’s ("Tribune") motion for a preliminary injunction.  The Tribune sought an injunction which would have required defendant Fox News Networks ("Fox") to change the name of its "Redeye" late-night television news program based upon alleged infringement of the Tribune’s Redeye mark related to its Redeye newspaper.  The Court held that the Tribune had only shown a "possibility" that it would prevail on the merits.  The Court found that the Tribune’s Redeye mark was at least suggestive and, therefore a strong mark.  And the Court held that while the marks did not visually resemble each other, the Tribune proved a likelihood that the marks were aurally identical.  But the evidence did not favor the Tribune on either of the other two "most important" factors in deciding likelihood of confusion:  defendant’s intent and actual confusion.  No evidence showed that Fox "passed off" its program as coming from the Tribune, so the issue of Fox’s intent favored Fox.  As to actual confusion, the Tribune put forth a witness that testified that he suffered "momentary actual confusion" when he first learned of Fox’s Redeye program, but that it was cleared up almost immediately by someone he was talking with about the program.  Additionally, the witness did not have cable television, so could not watch the show.  While initial confusion can be sufficient to show actual confusion, the Court disregarded the witnesses testimony because he admitted that he was a consumer of neither the Tribune’s nor Fox’s products.  Continue Reading Redeye Preliminary Injunction Denied Despite Aurally Identical Marks

International Profit Assocs., Inc. v. Paisola, 461 F. Supp.2d 672 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 14, 2006) (Bucklo, J.).

Judge Bucklo held that plaintiff was likely to succeed on its Lanham Act and cyberpiracy or cybersquatter, 15 U.S.C. Section 1125(d), claims and issued a temporary restraining order ("TRO") preventing defendants from conduct that likely infringed plaintiff’s trademarks.  Based upon the cyberpiracy claim, Defendants were ordered to stop making content available through their website, www.ipaopinion.com, which was likely confusingly similar to plaintiff’s site, www.ipaopinions.com.  The Court also ordered defendants to stop using plaintiff’s trademarks as search terms in Google’s Adwords program.  Continue Reading Using Trademarked Terms As Internet Advertising Keywords Violates the Lanham Act

McKillup Indus., Inc. v. Integrated Label Corp., No. 06 C 3279, 2006 WL 3775954 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 19, 2006) (Bucklo, J.).

Judge Bucklo denied summary judgment that defendant’s "integrated labels," "integrated cards" and "integrated forms" marks were generic.  Plaintiff argued that the marks were generic based upon the separate dictionary definitions of "integrated" and "labels/cards/forms" (although there was no dictionary definition of either of the three whole marks) and evidence that competitors use the term, including a Google search of each of the marks.Continue Reading Summary Judgment of Genericness Has a Very High Standard

Judges Bucklo, Coar, Gettleman, Kennelly and Lefkow are instituting a joint trial call in 2007 (the N.D. Ill.’s statement about it is here).  Each judge is contributing cases to the call, apparently at the judge’s discretion.  The cases in the call will be tried in order by one of the five judges, although not…