|
Allen v. World - Interval Appeals the Stay |
|
Tuesday, June 28 2011 @ 12:01 PM EDT
|
In a not surprising move, Interval Licensing has filed a motion [PDF, text below] with the court to reconsider the stay in the proceedings the court just granted two weeks ago. The court will need to consider this motion, and it is worth considering the arguments that Interval advances for reconsideration.
Interval cites four bases (although denominated as just two) for reconsideration:
(a) all of the work the parties have put into preparation for the Markman hearing that will now largely be lost;(b) the harm to the experts retained by Interval, who have conducted a review of the defendants' source code and who will now be bound by the protective order governing the source code and subject to patent prosecution bar (they will not be allowed to prosecute any patents for any client within the scope of the software to which they have had access) for the duration of the reexaminations and subsequent trial; (c) the USPTO, in granting the petitions for reexamination, did not rely on a substantial portion of the prior art submitted by the petitioner nor did it rely on petitioner's arguments in granting the petitions; and
(d) not all of the defendants are parties to the reexaminations and thus they can further delay any future trial by seeking further reexaminations (only the party(ies) petitioning for reexamination are bound by the resulting USPTO decision; other parties may still seek further reexamination).
In making its earlier determination to grant the stay the court cited three factors that are to be considered:
First, the
reexamination of the four patents is likely to simplify some issues and claims for both trial and
the Markman hearing. Defendants have presented a substantial body of prior art that they
believe will reshape the four patents at issue in this litigation. The Court believes that there is a
reasonable probability the PTO will simplify the issues for the Court and jury. Second, although
the Markman hearing is fast approaching, discovery in this case is not particularly far along and
the trial is roughly a year away. Though the Court recognizes the parties have expended
substantial resources, the Court does not find the case to be so advanced as to cut against issuance of a stay. Moreover, the discovery work to date will not be wasted. Third, the Court is
not able to find undue prejudice to Interval Licensing by granting the stay. Interval Licensing, a
holding company, does not compete with Defendants and there is no danger it will lose
customers, market share, or other intangible benefits. Rather, it can likely be compensated for
damages suffered even if a stay is issued. The Court also does not believe that the stay will
produce a clear tactical disadvantage to Interval Licensing.
Considering these factors, the weakest argument Interval presents is likely (c), the prior art submitted and relied upon. The USPTO is not obligated to use all prior art submitted, particularly if the examiner believes a single item of prior art is sufficient. Not infrequently in the give and take of reexamination the examiner will lead with what the examiner believes to be the strongest prior art, holding all remain prior art in reserve to counter arguments made by the patentee to overcome the examiner's rejections. That is largely what has occurred here. Contrary to Interval's argument, it sends no signal that the case for reexamination is weak.
Interval's arguments (a) and (b) are neither here nor there. The court considered (a) in deciding to grant the stay, and it is unlikely it will change its mind on this point. Similarly, while (b) may work a hardship on the experts retained by Interval, Interval has not cited anything to substantiate who these experts are and why it would work a harm on them. Are they, in fact, all patent attorneys? Don't know, but the argument is not overly persuasive.
That leaves Interval's (d) argument, and this one has some merit. If the stay is to remain in place the court should consider requiring all defendants to be bound by the results of the current reexaminations. To do otherwise does leave the door open to further significant delay and uncertainty. If it is not unfair to Interval to set aside (and potentially diminish the value of) all of the Markman work, then Interval should not have to face the specter of future delays as one defendant after another files its own petition for reexamination of the Interval patents.
************
Motion for Reconsideration
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON
AT SEATTLE
INTERVAL LICENSING LLC,
Plaintiff,
v.
AOL, INC. et al,
Defendant.
Case No. 2:10-cv-01385-MJP
INTERVAL’S MOTION FOR
RECONSIDERATION OF
COURT’S ORDER GRANTING
MOTIONS TO STAY
Interval respectfully requests that the Court reconsider its Order staying these eleven
actions (Dkt. # 253; the “Stay Order”). Defendants filed their Motions to Stay on March 17,
2011—within one day of filing their requests for reexaminations with the Patent and Trademark
Office (“PTO”). (Dkt. # 198) In the intervening three months since the parties briefed the
Motions to Stay, the parties have undertaken an incredible amount of work, most of which will be
of limited value should this action be stayed. In addition, the PTO rejected a number of
defendants’ arguments and references in granting the requests for reexamination, which further
supports Interval’s position that the reexaminations will not simplify the issues in these actions.
To the contrary, the parties will be back before the Court one, two, or six years from now most
likely litigating the exact same issues that are now before the Court.
These new facts warrant reconsideration, and demonstrate that staying these actions is
counterproductive and inconsistent with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 1, mandating that the
Federal Rules “[b]e construed and administered to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive
determination of every action and proceeding.”
A. The Parties Have Completed Significant Additional Work Since Filing Their Briefs In March
The Court issued the Stay Order at 5:15 pm on the day that the parties’ Markman briefs
were due. Pursuant to the scheduling order, Interval and Defendants were each to submit briefs
not to exceed 40 pages for each of the two tracks, for a total of 160 pages of briefing. When the
Court issued its order, the parties had already completed these briefs and were in the process of
filing them. Indeed, Interval had already filed its Markman brief on the ‘652/’314 track when the
Court issued the Stay Order. Interval’s counsel, alone, spent hundreds of hours preparing and
finalizing Interval’s Markman briefs. Counsel for the eleven defendants likely spent at least that
much time preparing defendants’ briefs, especially considering that 50 lawyers have entered
appearances on behalf of defendants.
In addition to the Markman, the parties spent hundreds of hours completing the
tasks leading up to the Markman briefs, including submitting a prehearing statement and joint
claim charts that exceeded 150 pages. During that process, the parties met and conferred for
hours in an attempt to reach compromise and narrow the issues to present to the Court for
resolution. If the actions are stayed, then at least one of the twelve parties will no doubt use the
delay as a justification to reject compromises already reached during this process.
The parties have also completed an extraordinary amount of discovery since March,
especially with respect to the production and review of defendants’ source code. When the
parties submitted their briefs on the Motions to Stay in March, not a single defendant had
produced source code. Since that time, every defendant has produced code that, together,
amounts to hundreds of thousands of lines of code.
By its nature, the review of source code is incredibly expensive and time consuming.
First, Interval retained seven experts to review defendants’ source code. Second, the reviews have been conducted at the offices of defendants’ outside counsel throughout the United States,
including Chicago, Virginia, Palo Alto, San Francisco, and Portland. Third, the code reviews are
conducted in accordance with seven pages of stringent source code review protocols set forth in ¶
11 of the protective order (Dkt. # 222). These protocols limit the number of pages that Interval’s
experts can print and limit the nature of the notes that Interval’s experts can take. These two
limitations together make it likely that much of the source code review will have to be repeated
after the stay is lifted because of the difficulty for Interval’s experts to pickup where they left off
years earlier because of the lack of comprehensive notes and printed source code.
In addition, because defendants designated their source code highly confidential under the
protective order, each of Interval’s seven experts had to sign Exhibit A to the protective order
before gaining access to the code. By signing Exhibit A and reviewing the code, the experts are
now subject to the patent prosecution bar in ¶ 6(b) of the protective order (Dkt. # 222). Pursuant
to the prosecution bar, the experts
shall not prosecute, supervise, or assist in the prosecution of any
patent application involving technology related to software for
recommending information to a user or other information filtering
techniques aimed at notifying users of items that are likely to be of
interest to that user or software directed to the engagement of the
peripheral attention of a person in the vicinity of a display device,
before any foreign or domestic agency, including the United States
Patent and Trademark Office.
This bar remains in place until one year after the final resolution of this action. Accordingly, the
Stay Order has the effect of extending the prosecution bar for these seven experts, likely for
years. This places an undue burden on the experts’ ability to pursue future engagements.
These new facts warrant the reconsideration of the Court’s Stay Order.
B. In Granting The Requests For Reexaminations, The PTO Rejected A Number Of
Defendants’ Arguments And References
The Stay Order noted that “Defendants have presented a substantial body of prior art that
they believe will reshape the four patents at issue in this litigation.” Order at 2. That is not
entirely accurate because the PTO already rejected a number of those references in granting the
reexaminations and instead focused on a single reference in granting most of the reexaminations.
First, in granting reexamination of the ‘314 patent, the examiner declined to reject any
claims based on the Rakavy reference. Instead, the grant of reexamination was premised on a
single primary reference—Kjorsvik. In addition, the examiner refused to adopt any of the
rejections defendants proposed in their request. (Dkt. # 247-5)
Second, in granting the reexamination of the ‘652 patent, the examiner mentioned only
one of the references that defendants identified (Petrecca). Although the examiner is not
precluded from relying on the other references, the failure even to mention those references in
granting the reexamination suggests that the examiner discounted defendants’ arguments. (Dkt. #
247-4)
Third, the PTO issued an office action concerning the ‘682 patent. In that office action,
the examiner refused to adopt any of the rejections defendants proposed in their request. Indeed,
the office action rejected the claims over a single reference—Bezos. (Dkt. # 247-2)
Fourth, in granting reexamination of the ‘507 patent, the examiner did not mention four of
the references that defendants identified (Joachims, Chesnais, Iwayama, and Yuasa). Again, the
examiner is not precluded from later relying on those references, but the failure to mention them
suggests that the examiner discounts defendants’ arguments. (Dkt. # 247-1)
In addition, the reexaminations will not simplify the issues for Markman or trial because
none of the requests for reexamination were joined by all of the defendants who are accused of infringing that patent. Defendants undoubtedly will argue when these patents emerge from reexamination
that at least one of the defendants can still raise all of the arguments now before the
PTO no matter the result of the reexamination.1 [FN.1 - Interval will vigorously oppose any attempt by a defendant to argue that it is not bound by a
particular reexamination because it did not joint in the request.] Such tactics reek of gamesmanship and leave
little doubt that the parties will be in the exact same position as they are now after the
reexaminations are completed years down the road.
For good reason, courts throughout the country, including other judges in this District and
in the Federal Circuit, have expressed increasing reluctance to stay cases during the reexamination
process. It is routine for patents to be involved both in litigation and re-examination
proceedings at the same time. Interval can only enforce its patents through litigation, and
delaying that process by as much as a few years is substantially prejudicial to Interval.
Defendants, on the other hand, will not be prejudiced at all by moving forward in a timely fashion
in an Article III court.
CONCLUSION
Interval respectfully requests that this Court reconsider its Order staying these actions.
The parties already have spent incredible amounts of time of money getting these eleven actions
to the brink of the Markman hearing and within six months of the end of fact discovery. Much of
the benefit of this work will be lost after a stay. This Court should deny the stay and keep these
actions on schedule to be heard by a jury next summer. Because the opening Markman briefs are
complete, Interval has no objection to moving the Markman hearing to a date later in the summer,
with a corresponding change in the discovery dates.
Dated: June 24, 2011
Respectfully submitted,
/s/ Justin A. Nelson
Justin A. Nelson
WA Bar No. 31864
E-Mail: jnelson@susmangodfrey.com
Edgar G. Sargent
WA Bar No. 28283
E-Mail: esargent@susmangodfrey.com
Matthew R. Berry
WA Bar No. 37364
E-Mail: mberry@susmangodfrey.com
SUSMAN GODFREY L.L.P.
1201 Third Ave, Suite 3800
Seattle, WA 98101
Telephone: (206) 516-3880
Facsimile: (206) 516-3883
[Other attorneys for Interval not listed.]
Attorneys for INTERVAL LICENSING LLC
|
|
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, June 28 2011 @ 03:40 PM EDT |
Thank you for a nice, simple explanation and argument. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
|
Authored by: nsomos on Tuesday, June 28 2011 @ 03:58 PM EDT |
It may be helpful to summarize the correction in posts title. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
- s/specter/spectre/ - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, June 28 2011 @ 06:36 PM EDT
- Not an appeal - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 29 2011 @ 06:32 PM EDT
|
Authored by: nsomos on Tuesday, June 28 2011 @ 04:14 PM EDT |
Other defendants may file their own petitions for reexaminations,
but the court need not grant any future requests for delays due to
these reexamination petitions. So this need not really be a reason
to prevent the current stay from remaining in place, or for forcing
other defendants to be bound by results of current reexaminations.
If the court lets defendants know that future stays for reexaminations
will NOT be granted, then the other defendants would be foolish to not
petition promptly for their own reexaminations if they have any reason
to believe the current reexaminations will not serve them well.
In effect, the 'D' argument is a false dichotomy. As if the only choices
were vacating the stay, or requiring all defendants to be bound by the
results of the current reexaminations.
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
|
Authored by: jsoulejr on Tuesday, June 28 2011 @ 04:35 PM EDT |
well, off topic [ Reply to This | # ]
|
- There were so many GREAT COMMENTS in the last article, that... should have been left up longer - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, June 28 2011 @ 06:09 PM EDT
- New Asus notebook with Linux, just $199 - Authored by: IMANAL_TOO on Tuesday, June 28 2011 @ 07:22 PM EDT
- HP gets another black mark in my book. - Authored by: YurtGuppy on Tuesday, June 28 2011 @ 07:49 PM EDT
- Semi Off Topic - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, June 28 2011 @ 10:29 PM EDT
- Office 365 - Authored by: SpaceLifeForm on Wednesday, June 29 2011 @ 12:30 AM EDT
- Afghans build super-cheap internet: Constructed from rubbish - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 29 2011 @ 12:47 AM EDT
- Darwin does Free Software - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 29 2011 @ 01:09 AM EDT
- Defence Contractor Signs Android Patent Agreement With Micro$oft - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 29 2011 @ 02:36 AM EDT
- Black menu bar - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 29 2011 @ 07:59 AM EDT
|
Authored by: jsoulejr on Tuesday, June 28 2011 @ 04:36 PM EDT |
some good reading [ Reply to This | # ]
|
|
Authored by: jsoulejr on Tuesday, June 28 2011 @ 04:41 PM EDT |
You know the drill. If not, ask! [ Reply to This | # ]
|
|
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, June 28 2011 @ 05:57 PM EDT |
"Interval should not have to face the specter of future delays as one
defendant after another files its own petition for reexamination of the Interval
patents."
No. Any reasonable, competent person looking at the patents can only come to
the conclusion that they are totally junk and that they were granted only
because of the incometence of the examiners. Anything that allows this case to
go forward is fundamentally unfair to society in general and to the defendants
in particular. The judge has to know this to be true. If not, then he is not
competent for patent cases.
True, the examiner will probably no totally invalidate the patents, but that is
only because of the examiners incompetence and because of the absurd definitions
of "prior art" and "obviousness" that are applied by the
patent courts, even though the definitions the courts use are nowhere found in
the actual law.
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
- Fairness - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 29 2011 @ 12:42 AM EDT
|
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, June 28 2011 @ 07:11 PM EDT |
I don't think the case should go forward, but I can at least see argument (a) as
plausible.
If I were an expert (either attorney or computer conslutant) and were under the
restraints of this order, there may be lots of lawsuits where I couldn't help.
That could make it hard for me to find work.
However, there is another thing about this that make it implausible. From what
Interval quoted about the restrictions on the experts, it seems to only bar them
from participating in cases that involve these (or substantially similar)
patents. Now, who can sue over these patents... Oh, just Interval. So if they
decide to sue the dog too (so it's Interval vs World+dog) they'd have to find
new experts. Assuming the new case isn't stayed.
And as for the argument that the expert work will be lost- don't they still have
the papers? I mean, come on. No evidence is lost if the trial is delayed.
Maybe the experts would have to be "reminded" of their report on the
stand, but seriously. And all the Markman documents will still apply when the
stay is lifted (assuming those patents survive reexam)
So overall, I'm sitting here wondering "where's the beef?"
--Jpvlsmv, not logged in[ Reply to This | # ]
|
|
Authored by: PolR on Tuesday, June 28 2011 @ 07:50 PM EDT |
"
(d) not all of the defendants are parties to the reexaminations and thus they
can further delay any future trial by seeking further reexaminations (only the
party(ies) petitioning for reexamination are bound by the resulting USPTO
decision; other parties may still seek further reexamination).
"
What if the court put a deadline for reexamination requests that are eligible
for a stay? After such deadline further reexamination requests won't stay the
trial anymore. Only those filed before the deadline will cause the stay.
Shouldn't that take care of this argument?
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
|
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, June 28 2011 @ 11:25 PM EDT |
Interval isn't harmed by delays. They don't have any products, just lawyers.
Why would the judge even consider an argument on this basis?[ Reply to This | # ]
|
|
Authored by: Ian Al on Wednesday, June 29 2011 @ 03:30 AM EDT |
We found in One At A Time
(Or Not) that the complaints had been severed. There is no reason why a
further request for re-examination of patents in one of the severed cases would
delay this trial because the judge still has the option for separate
trials.
Why should this defendant be disadvantaged just because a
defendant in another case finds a need for re-examination for the unrelated
complaints in their case? Why should the defendants in the other cases be
disadvantaged by having their cases rushed just so that the plaintiff can
prevail in this one?
The plaintiffs knew the risks when they filed the
omnibus complaint. The court severed the complaint. Why should the plaintiffs
not live with their mistake?--- Regards
Ian Al
OK, Just one more article and then I'll seek help. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
- What he said - Authored by: jbb on Wednesday, June 29 2011 @ 06:21 AM EDT
- Not quite - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 29 2011 @ 09:06 AM EDT
|
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 29 2011 @ 05:18 AM EDT |
> (b) the harm to the experts retained by Interval, who have
conducted a review of the defendants' source code and who will
now be bound by the protective order governing the source code
..
What source code and how would such a protective order impact
on the Interval case?
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
|
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 29 2011 @ 07:56 AM EDT |
Why don't they just file by saying what they really mean? "If we wait for
the USPTO to reexamine the patents, it might weaken our case. We recognize that
the courts are about helping us to get what we want and that it is not about
justice, or right vs wrong. To that end, help us to get what we want because we
believe we are right and any evidence to the contrary gets in the way."[ Reply to This | # ]
|
- I object... - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 29 2011 @ 09:02 AM EDT
|
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 29 2011 @ 09:01 AM EDT |
Interval should not have to face the specter of future delays as one
defendant after another files its own petition for reexamination of the Interval
patents.
If they don't want to face this "specter" they should
file to sever the cases, but wait.. Interval was the one that insisted that the
cases remained joined when the various defendants filed motions to sever. Since
Interval were the ones that insisted that the cases remain joined, then they
should expect to have these kinds of consequences and have to deal with them.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
|
Authored by: Ian Al on Thursday, June 30 2011 @ 03:13 AM EDT |
(b) the harm to the experts retained by Interval, who have conducted
a review of the defendants' source code and who will now be bound by the
protective order governing the source code and subject to patent prosecution bar
(they will not be allowed to prosecute any patents for any client within the
scope of the software to which they have had access) for the duration of the
reexaminations and subsequent trial.
I thought discovery had only
just started. Just what 'review of the defendant's source code' might that be?
Would that be the open-source Apache server source code under the Apache
licence? Perhaps it is the javascript that can be viewed in any browser. Just
what is the 'protective order' that binds the experts?
And what about
the experts being 'subject to patent prosecution bar (they will not be allowed
to prosecute any patents for any client within the scope of the software to
which they have had access) for the duration of the reexaminations and
subsequent trial'? Which software is that; just the Apache server software or
all open-source software under the Apache licence or all open-source software
under any open-source licence?
I think those poor, benighted, anonymous
experts need to be told just how much potential business they are required to
forgo, for the privilege of secretly helping the Paul Allen
lawyers.
Either that or this is just a bit of fact-free rhetoric added
as a make-weight to the rest of the powerful
argument.
</sarcasm>--- Regards
Ian Al
OK, Just one more article and then I'll seek help. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
|
|
|
|