In Buergofol GmbH v. Omega Liner Company, Inc., 4-22-cv-04112 (DSD Jul. 13, 2023) (Karen E. Schreier), the court granted the defendant’s motion to compel and awarded monetary sanctions after the plaintiff failed to respond at all to discovery requests that the plaintiff had objected to as overbroad because the court ruled the plaintiff “still had an obligation to respond to the extent it did not object.”
In response to Google L.L.C.’s (“Google”) and other’s petitions for inter partes review (“I.P.R.”) of two patents owned by Parus Holdings, Inc. (“Parus”), the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) found a number of claims obvious over prior art. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the PTAB’s decision, shedding additional light on the requirements and burdens of patent owners when responding to I.P.R. petitions.
In 2018, United Cannabis Corporation (“UCANN”) sued Pure Hemp Collective (“Pure Hemp”) for infringement of U.S. Patent No. 9,730,911 (the “‘911 patent”), entitled “Cannabis Extracts and Methods of Preparing and Using the Same. The ‘911 patent relates to “extraction of pharmaceutically active components … more particularly … botanical drug substance (B.D.S.) comprising cannabinoids obtained by extraction from cannabis.”
Continue Reading Attorney Fees Denied Due to Lack of Support in Cannabis Litigation Record
On April 24, 2023, the Ninth Circuit issued its opinion in Epic Games, Inc. v. Apple, Inc., and affirmed the trial court’s ruling in Apple’s favor as to Epic’s Sherman Act claim for restraint of trade relating to Apple’s distribution of apps in its App Store. (This article does not address the other antitrust and state law claims also at issue in the 91-page opinion.)The legal battle involved “a multi-trillion dollar technology company” (Apple) versus “a multi-billion dollar video game company” (Epic).
In Ventex Co., Ltd. v. Columbia Sportswear North America, Inc., IPR2017-00651 (PTAB Apr. 12, 2023) (per curiam), the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (the “Board”) found that petitioner Ventex Co., Ltd.’s (“Ventex) failure to disclose the existence of an agreement with a time-barred real party in interest unnecessarily delayed the proceedings and awarded over $32,000 in sanctions to the patent owner Columbia Sportswear North America, Inc. (“Columbia”).
