Tracking Northern District of Illinois IP Cases
PWC has published the latest installment in its excellent yearly patent litigation survey. This year’s survey looks at data for every year from 1995 through 2012. One interesting aspect of this year’s study was a focus upon individual districts and judges. Here are some of the key takeaways regarding the Northern District:
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AmTab Mfg. Corp. v. SICO Inc., No. 11 C 2692, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Aug. 13, 2012) (Darrah, J.).
Judge Darrah denied plaintiff AmTab’s motion for reconsideration of the Court’s prior claim construction order. While claim construction is an organic process that can be revised throughout a case, AmTab did not present any new …
AmTab Mfg. Corp. v. SICO, Inc., No. 11 C 2692, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. June 19, 2012) (Darrah, J.).
Judge Darrah denied defendants’ (collectively “SICO”) request to modify the Local Patent Rules standard protective order to include a prosecution bar. While a prosecution bar could be appropriate, SICO failed to provide the specific facts …
AmTab Mfg. Corp. v. SICO, Inc., No. 11 C 2692, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. March 29, 2012) (Darrah, J.).
Judge Darrah construed the disputed terms of the patent in suit related to a stool attaching to a folding table. Of particular note, the Court held as follows:
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Cascades Computer Innovations, LLC v. Sony-Ericsson Mobile Comms. (USA) Inc., No. 11 C 7223, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Apr. 18, 2012) (Darrah, J.).
Judge Darrah denied defendant’s Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss in this patent case involving simplifying the process by which computer software deals with errors or exceptions. Defendant agreed …
AmTab Mfg. Corp. v. SICO, Inc., No. 11 C 2692, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Jan. 19, 2012) (Darrah, J.).
Judge Darrah denied defendant’s (collectively “SICO”) motion to amend the Local Patent Rule Appendix B protective order to include a prosecution bar – a limitation that any counsel with access to a category of its…
Turina v. Crawley, No. 10 C 4292, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Feb. 16, 2012) (Darrah, J.).
Judge Darrah granted pro se defendant summary judgment as to plaintiff’s copyright claims and dismissed plaintiff’s remaining state law claims for lack of jurisdiction. As an initial matter, the Court treated those portions of defendant’s response that disputed …
Judge Darrah denied plaintiff’s application to proceed in forma pauperis and dismissed plaintiff’s complaint for failure to state a claim. Courts are required to dismiss a complaint when plaintiff seeks in forma pauperis status along with a complaint that fails to state a claim. Plaintiff’s complaint appears to sound in patent, trademarks and copyright. But it was “devoid of any substantive allegations” and, therefore, had to be dismissed.
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Continue Reading Lack of Substantive Allegations Requires Dismissal
Judge Darrah granted in part Does defendant’s Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss plaintiff Hard Drive Production’s (“HDP”) complaint accusing Does of infringing HDP’s copyrighted video via BitTorrent. While HDP had not received its copyrights registration, it was sufficient for HDP’s claim in the Seventh Circuit that HDP sought registration before filing suit.
The Court did, however, dismiss HDP’s civil conspiracy claim, without prejudice to replead, for failure to plead agreement between the Does to infringe. Finally, HDP’s claims that the Does infringed HDP’s copyright via BitTorrent were sufficient to satisfy the Fed. R. Civ. P. 20(c)(2) joinder standard. The Court noted that its joinder holding was consistent with other Northern District of Illinois decisions, although the Northern District of California held that the allegations did not meet the joinder requirements.
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Continue Reading Common Use of Bit Torrent Sufficient for Joinder
Judge Danah awarded defendants (collectively “Peerless”) certain of its costs after holding that Peerless was the prevailing party in this patent infringement case. While Peerless lost its inequitable conduct claim as well as its state law claims, Peerless was the prevailing party because it won summary judgment of noninfringement and invalidity. Furthermore, the Court would not apportion the costs because Peerless only won on two of its nine claims. Pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(d), the Court awarded Peerless the following costs:
Fees for service at the U.S. Marshall’s rate of $55/hour.
Fees for transcripts at the expedited rates. The Court held Peerless was justified in expediting the transcripts in light of tight summary judgment deadlines and the preliminary injunction hearing in the case.
Printing and copying fees in light of the preliminary injunction proceedings and voluminous discovery.
The Court also awarded discovery-related fees and costs pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(4)(E):
Both sides’ expert witness fees based upon a formula to account for reasonable deposition preparation time of three times the length of the deposition. Peerless received its expert fees related to noninfringement and invalidity. Plaintiff Neural Tandem was awarded its expert fees related to its inequitable conduct defense.
The Court also held that Local Rule 54.1 and its thirty day deadline for seeking costs did not apply to Rule 26(b)(4)(E) fee motions.
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Continue Reading Both Parties Awarded Expert Witness Fees
