This case involved the SEC's claims against Robert Olins and his company Argyle Capital Management for violating Section 5 of the Securities Act of 1933 by selling unregistered SpatiaLight securities, following an earlier partial summary judgment on liability and a consent decree resolving related reporting violations under the Exchange Act. The court granted the SEC's motion in part by issuing a permanent injunction barring future Section 5 violations and ordering the defendants to disgorge the proceeds from the unlawful stock sales along with prejudgment interest, holding them jointly and severally liable. It denied in part the request for a third-tier civil penalty against Olins, citing the $180,000 penalty already imposed in the consent decree. The core reasoning for the injunction rested on the totality of circumstances, including the knowing nature of the violations, Olins's history of securities trading, and his continued role that could lead to future breaches, while disgorgement followed from the defendants' receipt of proceeds from the sales.
The case involves four named plaintiffs and 120 additional class members who worked as loan officers for HSBC and allege that the company improperly classified them as exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act, resulting in unpaid overtime compensation. Plaintiffs moved for partial summary judgment on four of HSBC's affirmative defenses and two damages-related issues. The court granted the motion in part and denied it in part, finding that HSBC could not rely on certain Department of Labor guidance or regulations to support an outside sales exemption defense under 29 U.S.C. § 213(a)(1) and related regulations, but allowing other potential defenses such as good faith to proceed to trial where factual disputes remained. The ruling turned on whether loan officers' primary duties involved making sales away from the employer's place of business on a customary and regular basis, with inferences drawn in favor of the non-moving party where evidence was lacking or disputed.
In Smith v. Ford Motor Co., plaintiffs Richard Smith and Rebecca Klein sued Ford, alleging that the company concealed high failure rates of ignition locks in 2000-2006 Focus vehicles caused by ergonomic and mechanical defects, provided an unconscionable standard warranty, and operated a secret warranty adjustment program. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted Ford's motion for summary judgment on the claims under the Consumer Legal Remedies Act, fraudulent concealment, and related theories. The court reasoned that plaintiffs lacked sufficient evidence to establish a safety risk from the defects, a duty to disclose, unconscionability of the warranty, or other elements of their claims, and one plaintiff had purchased her vehicle as-is from a third party.
This case involves a dispute over ownership, copyrights, trademarks, and licensing rights to versions of Visualize-IT software used for energy data analysis, stemming from an employment relationship, a 2008 settlement agreement between Koperwhats and RLW, KEMA's acquisition of RLW, and subsequent allegations of unauthorized use and false statements. KEMA, RLW, and related parties filed claims and faced counterclaims for copyright infringement, trade secret misappropriation, breach of contract, and unfair competition. The court denied Koperwhats and MiloSlick's motion to dismiss the complaint, granted in part and denied in part KEMA and RLW's motion to dismiss counterclaims, and granted the motions to dismiss filed by Pucket and Axmor, primarily due to inadequate pleading, failure to meet copyright registration requirements under 17 U.S.C. § 411, and other deficiencies like lack of a protectable trade secret. It also granted in part motions to strike certain prayers for damages on grounds including unclean hands and statutory limits.
This case involves a patent dispute between Medtronic and AGA Medical Corp., where the key issue was whether a document known as the Hughes document qualified as prior art under 35 U.S.C. § 102 because it was a publicly accessible printed publication before the relevant patent filing dates. Medtronic moved for summary judgment arguing that the document, housed at the Defense Technical Information Center, was not publicly accessible absent evidence of meaningful cataloging or indexing. The court denied the motion, finding that citations to the Hughes document in two other publications created a triable issue of fact as to public accessibility, since those references demonstrated that interested skilled persons had located it without any showing of cataloging required. The decision was based on established case law holding that actual distribution or accessibility to relevant experts can suffice to establish a document as a printed publication even without indexing.
The case involved plaintiff Betty Hoskins, a former Bayer janitorial worker who received long-term disability benefits under the Bayer Corporation Disability Plan after a 2001 workplace injury but had those benefits terminated in 2005. The court addressed cross-motions for summary judgment in an ERISA action challenging the plan administrator's decision. It granted the defendant's motion and denied the plaintiff's, holding that the administrator did not abuse its discretion because Hoskins failed to submit required documentation showing she remained under regular physician care and totally disabled from any occupation, despite multiple extension opportunities and requests; the functional capacity evaluation and lack of recent medical records supported the finding of eligibility for sedentary work. The opinion noted that independent medical reviewers confirmed the absence of sufficient evidence of ongoing disability.
The case involves Research in Motion's motion to stay proceedings on Visto's patents (U.S. Patent Nos. 7,225,231 and 7,228,383) while the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office conducts reexamination. The court granted the stay after evaluating three factors: the early stage of discovery with a trial date more than thirteen months away and no claim construction or dispositive motions filed; the likelihood that reexamination would cancel or alter claims and thereby simplify the issues; and the absence of undue prejudice to Visto, as mere delay from reexamination does not qualify as a tactical disadvantage. The ruling limits the number of claim terms for the upcoming hearing to six.
This case involved a patent infringement dispute in which VNUS Medical Technologies alleged that defendants AngioDynamics, VSI, and Diomed willfully infringed its patents related to medical procedures for vein treatment. The court considered defendants' motion for summary judgment of no willful infringement, applying the Seagate standard requiring proof of an objectively high likelihood of infringement that was known or obvious to the infringer. For AngioDynamics and VSI, the court granted summary judgment because VNUS's cited evidence—such as FDA filings by non-parties, expert testimony, and corporate statements—failed to support a finding that those defendants copied the patented methods or acted with the requisite knowledge. For Diomed, the court denied summary judgment, finding that testimony from Diomed's own inventors about learning tumescent anesthesia techniques from VNUS presentations raised a triable issue regarding copying and willfulness.
