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LimeCoral, Ltd. v. CareerBuilder, LLC, No. 15 C 7484, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Mar. 9, 2017) (Der-Yeghiayan, J.).

Judge Der-Yeghiayan granted defendant CareerBuilder’s Fed. R. Civ. P. 56 motion for summary judgment as to plaintiff LimeCoral’s copyright, breach of contract and unjust enrichment claims. The Court also denied LimeCoral’s Rule 56 motion for partial…

Feb. 2, 2018) (Pallmeyer, J.).

Judge Pallmeyer denied plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration of the Court’s summary judgment decisions against plaintiff in this patent dispute involving stalk stompers — devices that attach to a tractor or combine to flatten cornstalks after they have been cut.

The Court found a handful of factual errors and that certain…

The Northern District of Illinois continued its historically busy intellectual property docket in 2010. The most interesting statistic is a huge jump in patent filings this year — 250 patent cases filed this year, nearly double 2009’s 137 filings. And that is after a slight dip in filings from 2008 to 2009. I will discuss the 2010 filings in more detail in a post later this month, but even correcting for false patent marking suits, not all of which are included in the 250 filings because plaintiffs did not uniformly identify false marking cases as patent cases on civil cover sheets filed with the complaints, there was a significant increase in patent filings. That fits with my prediction in late 2008 that the Northern District’s new Local Patent Rules would drive cases to Chicago.*
Trademark cases continued their slow growth, showing a slight increase over 2009. Finally, copyright cases increased, after falling off sharply in 2009. This chart shows the number of yearly patent, trademark and copyright cases filed in the Northern District during calendar years 2006 through 2009 (data gathered from the Stanford IP Clearinghouse and Pacer):
Northern District IP FilingsCase Type
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
Patent
126
141
151
137
250
Trademark
136
130
128
136
143
Copyright
194
123
81
41
4
* Click here for much more on the Local Patent Rules in the Blog’s archives.
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Continue Reading Northern District of Illinois 2010 IP Case Filings:

2008 was another busy IP year for the Northern District of Illinois. Once again, there was an increase in patent case filings, and the Northern District continues to be among the top five patent dockets in the country and the most active district court in the Seventh Circuit by far. Trademark cases were steady, with only two fewer filings than in 2007. And as with its patent docket, the Northern District’s trademark docket continues to be one of the five most active in the country. Finally, copyright cases continued a relatively steep decline. But despite the decline, the Northern District maintains one of the most active copyright dockets outside of California and the Southern District of New York. This chart shows the number of yearly patent, trademark and copyright cases filed in the Northern District during calendar years 2006 through 2008 (data gathered from the Stanford IP Clearinghouse):
2008 Northern District IP Case Filings
Case Type 2006 2007 2008
Patent 126 141 151
Trademark 136 130 128
Copyright 194 123 81
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Continue Reading N.D. Illinois 2008 Year in Review

Patent Appeal Tracer has a great post listing the patent filings for June 2008 by district. Tracer used Pacer and “math” to come up with its list, which shows that the Northern District is fourth in patent filings for the month with 19 of 255 filings (about 85 of the total). Those 19 filings give the Northern District 87 patent cases in the first half of 2008, well on the way to another busy year. The top three were not surprising:
1. Eastern District of Texas — 32 filings
2. District of Delaware — 24 filings
3. Central District of California — 20 filings
Patent Appeal Tracer also mentions EZ4Media’s two Northern District cases against thirteen defendants as cases to watch. The defendants in those cases are alleged to infringe patents to wireless streaming of digital media.
[UPDATE:] More on the year’s trademark and copyright filings is coming next week, prompted by Mike Graham’s Seattle Trademark Lawyer post about this year’s Western District of Washington trademark litigation statistics — click here to read it. Thanks for the mention Mike.
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Continue Reading Northern District Continues as a Top Five Patent District

There were 140 patent cases filed in the Northern District during 2007, an 11% increase from the 126 patent cases filed in 2006. This maintains the Northern District’s status as the fifth largest patent district. According to TrollTracker (click here for TrollTracker’s year end filing analysis), the Eastern District of Texas was first with 364 filings, more than 2.5 times the Northern District’s filings. The Central District of California came in a distant second with 272 patent filings, followed by the District of New Jersey at 187, the District of Delaware at 147 and then the Northern District. Of the Northern Districts 140* filings, 49 or 35% were disposed of during 2007.
A list of each case, the case number, the filing date and, where appropriate, the date the case was resolved are provided after the jump. In the next week or two, I will be doing similar posts for trademark and copyright cases filed during 2007.
* TrollTracker reports 137 patent cases. The discrepancy may be explained by several cases filed during the last few days of the year that did not make it to Pacer until after January 1.
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Continue Reading Northern District’s 2007 Patent Filings Up 11%

Trading Techs. Int’l., Inc. v. eSpeed, Inc., No 04 C 5312, Slip op. (N.D. Ill. June 20, 2007) (Moran, Sen. J.).*
Judge Moran granted defendants (collectively “eSpeed”) summary judgment of noninfringement regarding eSpeed’s Dual Dynamic, eSpeedometer and Modified eSpeedometer products (collectively the “Products”). The Court held that none of the Products met the “static” limitation in the claim terms “common static price axis” and “static display of prices.” In previous opinions, the Court construed and reconstrued “common static price axis” as:
a line comprising price levels that do not change positions unless a manual re-centering command is received . . . .
(emphasis added). The Court also construed “static display of prices” as:
a display of prices comprising price levels that do not change positions unless a manual rec-centering command is received.
(emphasis added). Because each of the Products included either an automatic re-centering feature or “drift” re-centering (automatic re-centering in response to market changes), the Court held that the Products did not meet the “static” limitation and, therefore, did not literally infringe plaintiff Trading Technologies’ (“TT”) patents. In support of its ruling, the Court cited its claim construction reconsideration opinion (discussed in the Blog’s archives), where it explained that “any movement of the static price axis leaves accused technology outside the protection of [TT’s] patents.”
The Court also held that the Products do not infringe pursuant to the doctrine of equivalents. With respect to the Products that used automatic re-centering, the Court held that regardless of how infrequent the re-centering might occur a holding that automatic changing of positions was equivalent to only changing positions manually would “vitiate the ‘static’ requirement.” The Court held that the Products that used “drift” re-centering were equivalent because there was a “mouse lock” mechanism to ensure a trader never lost a price (the purpose of the “static” requirement”).
But the Court held that prosecution history estoppel barred TT from relying upon the doctrine of equivalents with respect to the “static” limitation. During prosecution, TT amended its claims adding the requirements that the “static price axis” and the “static display of prices” could “not move.” These amendments barred use of the doctrine of equivalents.
The Court also addressed the parties’ arguments with respect to the “order entry region” limitation despite the fact that it could not change the outcome of the Court’s decision “[b]ecause [the Court was] convinced that regardless of the outcome, this case will surely make its way to the Federal Circuit . . . .” The Court explained that it “would likely determine” that the Products contain an “order entry region” and grant summary judgment on that issue for TT. But because the Products did not meet the “static” limitation, the Court granted summary judgment of noninfringement for eSpeed.
* You can read much more about this case and related cases in the Blog’s archives.
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Continue Reading Claim Constructions Lead to Summary Judgment of Noninfringement

Rosenthal Collins Group, LLC v. Trading Techs. Int’l, Inc., No. 05 C 4088, 2007 WL 1597928 (N.D. Ill. May 16, 2007) (Moran, Sen. J.).
Judge Moran granted declaratory judgment defendant Trading Technologies’ (“TT”) motion to compel documents and things identified by third party declarant Walter Buist during his deposition, despite declaratory judgment plaintiff Rosenthal Collins Group’s (“RCG”) assurances that the documents and things had already been produced. RCG previously filed a motion for summary judgment of invalidity of TT’s patents based upon a declaration by Buist regarding software that he developed, at least partially, more than a year before TT filed its patent applications. In a previous opinion, the Court held that RCG’s motion was “somewhat misleading” and possibly “disingenuous,” but refused to dismiss the case (you can read the Blog’s discussion of that opinion here, as well as more on this case generally in the Blog’s archives).
After RCG filed its motion, TT deposed Buist regarding, among other things, the creation of his declaration and his interactions with RCG’s counsel related thereto. During that deposition, Buist stated, among other things, that various drafts of his declaration were created, that he created a “differences” list and provided it to RCG’s counsel and that he had used various computers during his work related to the case. TT sought all drafts of the declaration, a list of any destroyed drafts, the differences list, any drives or computers used by Buist and all documents reflecting communications between Buist or his associates and RCG and its counsel or associates.
In light of RCG’s statements that it had already produced many of the requested documents and things, the Court ordered RCG to: 1) reproduce all such documents; 2) produce any remaining responsive documents (including the computers requested); and 3) produce documents reflecting relationships between Buist and RCG or its counsel, so long as such documents are not privileged. The Court also required that RCG produce Buist for an additional deposition to answer questions related to the compelled documents, as well as Buist’s relationship with RCG and its counsel, so long as the questioning does not violate Buist’s attorney-client privilege.
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Continue Reading Discovery Granted Regarding Drafts of Third Party Declaration