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Bone Care Int’l., LLC v. Pentech Pharms., Inc., No. 08 C 1083, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Mar. 22, 2012) (Dow, J.).

Judge Dow issued his opinion, findings of fact and conclusions of law following a bench trial conducted during October and November 2010 on the issues of validity and enforceability of plaintiffs’ patent for …

7-Eleven, Inc. v. Spear, No. 10 C 6697, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. May 11, 2012) (Dow, J.).

 Judge Dow granted summary judgment to plaintiff 7-Eleven in this contract and Lanham Act case after defendants (collectively “Vianna”) failed to respond to 7-Eleven’s Local Rule 56.1 statements of fact or submit its own supplemental statements of …

Judge Dow denied plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction to prevent further alleged infringement of plaintiff’s photographs and denied defendant John Wiley & Sons’ motion to dismiss plaintiff’s fraud claim. There is not an automatic rule that ongoing copyright infringement warrants an injunction. Instead, plaintiff must meet its burden as to each factor.
Plaintiff showed a likelihood of success on the merits that: 1) he has copyrighted works; 2) John Wiley & Sons only had a limited right to use them; and 3) some were used without any license. But plaintiff could not show irreparable harm. Plaintiff was in the business of licensing photographs and any harm could be remedied with money damages. The Court did, however, note that plaintiff would be in a strong position to recover his attorneys’ fees should he succeed on the merits because of the ongoing nature of the alleged violation. But without irreparable harm, there could be no preliminary injunction.
Motion to Dismiss
Plaintiff’s fraud claim was premised upon request letters for plaintiff’s photographs and later uses of those photographs. The required intent to deceive was pled only on information and belief. Plaintiff’s contentions were “barely” sufficient, but were sufficient. It was not clear whether the alleged acts were just broken promises or intentional, fraudulent acts.
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Continue Reading Copyright Infringement Claims Do Not Guarantee Preliminary Injunction

Judge Dow affirmed Magistrate Judge Brown’s order entering a protective order in this copyright case involving stock photographs used in textbooks. There were three key holdings:
1. It was proper to allow defendant’s print run quantities and distribution to be treated as confidential – without ruling on the confidentiality of any particular document.
2. It was proper to allow party to initially file confidential documents under seal, along with redacted public copies, to allow the Court to probe the confidentiality.
3. Excluding the use of confidential information in future, related matters was also proper. The parties can always seek to modify the provision should circumstances warrant it.
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Continue Reading Court Excludes Use of Confidential Infraction in Later Cases

Judge Dow granted defendants summary judgment of invalidity based upon several prior art references in this patent case involving color combinations for a printing system. As an initial matter, the Court excluded the following for failure to comply with Local Rule 56.1:
Legal conclusions or unsupported statements of fact;
Denials without proper factual support were deemed admitted;
Any additional facts in a brief, but not in a Rule 56.1 statement as supplemental statements; and
Facts shoe-horned into Rule 56.1 responses.
Of particular note:
The Court denied plaintiff’s motion to strike defendant’s supplemental expert declaration. While the reports included new opinions, plaintiffs were not prejudiced because the declarations were served during discovery and before the depositions of the experts.
While the Court could have stopped its analysis after the first piece of art invalidated the remaining claims, the Court analyzed each piece of art for the sake of completeness.
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Continue Reading Facts Shoe-Horned into Local Rule 56.1 Responses are Disregarded

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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Continue Reading Successful Trademark Plaintiff Awarded its Attorney’s Fees Pursuant to a Franchise Agreement

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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Continue Reading Bill of Costs Support Need Only be Reasonable

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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Continue Reading ANDA Case Stayed Pending Reexam