Maryland Intellectual Property Law Blog : Maryland Intellectual Property Lawyer & Attorney : Brian Wm. Higgins : Serving Baltimore, Columbia, Frederick

• UPDATE: Star Scientific vs. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.

     Next Monday, Petersburg, Virginia-based Star Scientific, Inc. and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. will resume their battle over allegations of RJR's infringement of Star's U.S. Patent Nos. 6,202,649 and 6,425,401, as the parties open the first of five days of their jury trial in the courtroom of the Honorable Marvin Garbis of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. Star's lawsuit has a long history, including a bench trial on the issue of the enforceability of the asserted patents in 2005. On June 25, 2007, Judge Garbis found Star’s patents to be unenforceable on the basis of inequitable conduct by Star’s attorneys during prosecution of the patents before the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Judges Michel, Dyk, and Schall) reversed, and now the case is back before the trial court. Start time: 10:00 am, May 18.

Related posts:  Inequitable Conduct, Conspiracy Theory

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• Nacre AS v. Silynx Communications, Inc., matter, No. 07-cv-02676, filed Oct. 2, 2007; assigned to J. Williams

For those of you following the Nacre AS v. Silynx Communications, Inc., matter (and many of you are, based on traffic on this website), the parties jointly filed a stipulated schedule with the court, which was granted by U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland Judge Williams in September 2008.  According to the schedule, the parties are exchanging claim construction briefs in January and February 2009, and trial is expected in August 2009. 

The patents at issue, as indicated in the complaint, are U.S. Patent No. 7,039,195 (“Ear Terminal”) and U.S. Patent No. 6,567,524 (“Noise Protection Verification Device”).

Both parties engage in the development and manufacturing of noise protection/cancelling communications headsets used by military forces (and others). 

Please search "quietpro" on this website for more information about the lawsuit.

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     David Donoghue at the Chicago IP Lit. Blog reports today about a discovery matter in a Northern District of Illinois patent case: Se-Kure Controls, Inc. v. Diam USA, Inc., No. 06 C 4857, 2008 WL 169029 (N.D. Ill. Jan. 17, 2008) (Cox, Mag. J.). According to David, Magistrate Judge Cox "granted in part a motion to compel discovery regarding defendant’s advice of counsel defense. The Court ordered defendants to product a technical witness that provided opinion counsel information because opinion counsel was unable to remember the substance of conversations between the two. The Court also ordered production of communications between opinion counsel and trial counsel related to the patent in suit. These communications were within the scope of defendant’s waiver, even though a deposition of trial counsel would not have been allowed." 

     This opinion is one of many to be published post-Seagate, and further illustrates the extent to which courts will allow discovery once the opinion of counsel defense is raised by defendants in patent litigation matters. Click here for summaries of other post-Seagate cases.

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     If you are interested in learning the nuts-and-bolts of trying a patent case, join Maryland U.S. District Court Judges Marvin J. Garbis and André M. Davis, other judges, and a large faculty of litigators, in Scottsdale, AZ, on February 28-29, 2008, for Trial of a Patent Case. The live course, which will also be webcasted, is part of the 15th Annual Advanced ALI-ABA Course of Study for the Corporate Counsel and the Private Practitioner. Judges Garbis and Davis presided over a combined four patent lawsuits filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland in 2007. They also have a perspective on Maryland's comprehensive e-discovery protocol, which other jurisdictions have adopted. George F. Pappas, who is representing Microsoft in the Technology Patents lawsuit pending in the U.S. District Court for the District Maryland, will co-chair the program with Judge Garbis. 

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