The case involved Imperial Tobacco Canada Limited (ITCAN) appealing a Bankruptcy Court order that denied its request for leave to file a late proof of claim in the Flintkote bankruptcy proceedings. ITCAN sought to assert an alter ego contribution and indemnity claim, arguing that the Third Circuit’s 2010 Grossman’s decision—which broadened the definition of a “claim” under the Bankruptcy Code by overruling the prior Frenville accrual test—created a new right that justified an untimely filing despite the 2005 bar date. The Plan Proponents moved to dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction. The District Court granted the motion and dismissed the appeal, concluding that it lacked authority to review the Bankruptcy Court’s order. The court reached this result after reviewing the timing of ITCAN’s filings, its prior awareness of the bankruptcy and bar date, and the equitable standards for excusable neglect without reaching the merits of the claim.
The case involved the State of New York suing Intel Corporation for alleged antitrust violations under the federal Sherman Act, New York’s Donnelly Act, and related state law, seeking treble damages on behalf of both the state and numerous non-state public entities (such as local governments and authorities) that purchased computers containing Intel microprocessors. Intel moved to dismiss the claims brought on behalf of the non-state entities, arguing that New York lacked authority to represent them. The court granted the motion and dismissed those claims with prejudice. It held that Section 342-b of New York’s General Business Law permits the Attorney General to sue on behalf of political subdivisions or public authorities only upon their request (or via a class action with an opt-out mechanism), which New York failed to obtain before filing, and that post-filing efforts to secure such requests came too late to avoid prejudice to Intel given the advanced stage of the case.
The case involved a patent infringement suit by Ateliers de la Haute-Garonne (AHG) against Broetje Automation over U.S. Patent Nos. 5,011,339 and 5,143,216, which describe a method and apparatus for dispensing rivets or similar objects through tubes with internal grooves or passageways. The court granted Broetje’s motion for partial summary judgment of invalidity, holding that the patents were invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 112 ¶ 1 for failure to disclose the best mode, and it denied AHG’s cross-motion to strike the best-mode defense as untimely. The core reasoning was that inventor testimony established the inventors had discovered before the December 1988 filing date that an odd number of grooves was superior for reducing jamming, yet the patents contained no disclosure or explanation of this preference; the court found no genuine factual dispute on the timing or concealment of this information. It further concluded that Broetje’s supplementation of its invalidity contentions shortly after the inventors’ depositions satisfied the Pennypack factors and did not warrant striking the defense.
This patent infringement case, originally filed in 2001 by nCube (now ARRIS) against SeaChange, involved U.S. Patent No. 5,805,804 for scalable multimedia data transmission over networks in video-on-demand systems. A 2002 jury found SeaChange willfully infringed, leading to enhanced damages and a 2006 permanent injunction barring sales of the adjudicated ITV system or devices not more than colorably different that clearly infringe. ARRIS later moved for contempt, alleging SeaChange’s post-verdict redesigned ITV system— which altered components like the Connection Manager, Streaming Service, and use of Client ID versus Session ID—still infringes or falls within the injunction’s scope. The court ruled that the matter is amenable to resolution via contempt proceedings rather than a new lawsuit and scheduled a hearing, while reserving judgment on whether colorable differences exist or infringement continues. It based this on the procedural history, the injunction’s language, and intervening Federal Circuit precedent clarifying when modified products may be addressed through contempt.
This case is a patent infringement action brought by Xerox against Google and Yahoo, alleging infringement of U.S. Patent No. 6,778,979 relating to methods for labeling and categorizing documents. The court opinion addresses claim construction for several disputed terms and order-of-steps requirements in the patent claims, applying standard principles that give claim terms their ordinary meaning to a person of skill in the art while considering the specification and prosecution history as primary guides. It also resolves a discovery dispute, holding that a common interest privilege protects certain communications between Xerox and its agent IPValue because the parties shared allied legal interests in patent enforcement and litigation strategy under a contingency arrangement. The court denied the defendants' request to compel production of the withheld documents, distinguishing the facts from cases involving arm's-length negotiations with potential investors.
This case involves a dispute between JFE Steel Corporation and SABIC Innovative Plastics US, LLC (plaintiffs) and ICI Americas, Inc. and Imperial Chemical Industries PLC (defendants) over liability for perchlorate contamination at a Santa Ana, California industrial site formerly used for Teflon recycling. The contamination stemmed from operations by ICIA before and briefly after its 1991 sale of the site and related business to a predecessor of the plaintiffs under an Asset Purchase Agreement and related contracts. Plaintiffs sought recovery of over $6.7 million in cleanup costs under CERCLA as well as contractual indemnification, while defendants moved for summary judgment on all claims. The court denied plaintiffs' motion for partial summary judgment on the CERCLA claims, granted their motion on the breach of contract claims, and granted in part and denied in part defendants' motion, primarily turning on interpretations of the agreements' liability allocation and indemnification provisions along with issues of standing and statutes of limitations.