Seattle Patent Litigation Update Fall 2009

Seeing that it has been almost a month since I last posted, I thought I needed to break the silence and provide an update on the world of Seattle patent litigation.

For my part, things have been extremely busy over the last 30 days, which included a trip back to the CAFC to argue a design patent case, one of the first that might extend the Egyptian Goddess holding into determinations of invalidity. The case is International Seaway Trading Corp. v. Walgreens (2009-1237). My panel was made up of Judge Bryson, Dyk, and Clevenger. Here is a link to the audio. On the day I argued, my colleague here at Darby's Seattle office, David Tellekson, argued National Products Inc. v. Gamber Johnson LLC (2009-1195) before a panel made up of Judges Newman, Moore, and Plager. I was able to watch David's argument live (audio link here), after which I retired to the library on the 4th floor of the Howard T. Markey National Courts building to review a few more cases and finish my outline (none of which I was able to give given the constant peppering of questions I received from the panel).

I can report the case that David argued, an appeal from a decision by Judge Jones here in the Western District of Washington, where we represented the appellee, National Products Inc, the panel summarily affirmed under Circuit Rule 36. As for my case, I'm still waiting to hear.

In other Seattle patent litigation news, there have been just four cases filed since August. They are listed below. Year to date, only 30 patent cases have been filed in the WD of WA, that is substantially less than last year at this time, there were 39 patent cases filed by by the end of October 2008.

Here is a list of the cases filed since August.

October 5, 2009
Laughing Rabbit Inc v. Stever (Judge Pechman)

October 1, 2009
Logan v. BabyPlus Company et al (Judge Robart)

September 29, 2009
Lectent LLC v. SAS Group Inc et al (Judge Leighton)

August 25, 2009
National Products, Inc v. Gamber-Johnson LLC (Judge Pechman)