Revised Local Rules Become Effective December 1, 2009

The Western District adopted revised local rules, including some important revisions to CR 7, the rule governing motion practice.   These revisions take place December 1, 2009. 

Here is a summary of the changes to CR 7:

• CR 7(d)(1), the rule governing the consideration of motions and saying that certain motions shall be noted for consideration on the day they are filed, now expressly includes both motions for the clerk to enter default, and a motion for default judgment.
•  CR 7(d)(2), the rule setting briefing schedules for all other motions, gets rid of the so-called "seven-day" motions, and says that all motions not falling under 7(d)(1), shall be noted for a Friday, and that certain motions shall be noted for consideration "no earlier that the second Friday." Note that this list is dramatically reduced from the sort of motions that used to be considered on a seven day calendar.  The thought here was that there was simply not enough time for parties to oppose motions that were listed.  The motions that can be considered on a shorter schedule, albeit not as short as the old "seven-day" motions, include 

1. Motions for relief from a deadline;
2. Motions or protective orders;
3. Motions to seal under CR 5(g)

• Papers  in opposition to any such motion shall be due the Wednesday before the noting date.
• CR 7(d)(3) says that all other non dispositive motions shall be noted for consideration on the third Friday.
• CR 7(d)(4), a compeltely new rule, limits motions in limine to one per side, and eliminates reply.  This rule also includes a requirement for counsel to meet and confer in advance of filing the motion in limine, and that the motion include a certification that "the movant has in good faith
  conferred or attempted to confer with other affected parties in an effort to resolve which
  matters really are in dispute."  
• The new rule further provides that "A good faith effort to confer requires a face-to-face meeting
  or a telephone conference. If the court finds that counsel for any party, or a party
  proceeding pro se, willfully refuses to confer, fails to confer in good faith, or fails to
  respond on a timely basis to a request to confer, the court may take action as stated in GR
  3 of these rules."
• The page limit for Motions in Limine is expressly set at 18 by new rule 7(e)(5).  This is probably sufficient for most cases.  I would advise counsel to approach the Court with a stipulation to expand that page limit in special cases.
• CR 7(f)(1) motions to file overlength brief shall be filed "as soon as possible."  This eliminated the old rule requiring at least three judicial days before the underlying motion or brief is due.
• CR 7(h), motions for reconsideration, this rule was changed to allow fourteen days for the filig ot motions for reconsideration, expanded from 10.

That's all for CR 7, folks. There are other important changes to the rest of the rules, so be sure to read them yourself.

Seattle Patent Litigation News

It's been a while since I've posted. I know both of you are disappointed (hi mom). Reason for the hiatus is that I've been preparing for trial. So expect my posts to be less frequent through about the end of July.

There's still a lot to report on the local patent litigation front. First, as I'm sure many of you already know, Nintendo was hit with a significant infringement verdict by a Texas jury last week, in the amount of about $21 Million. My previous post on this case can be found here. Here is a bit of coverage of the case from IP 360

Thursday, May 15, 2008 --- Nintendo Inc. was ordered to pay a small Texan
patent holder $21 million on Wednesday for infringing patents related to the
controllers for its popular GameCube and Wii video-gaming systems.
A federal jury found that Nintendo infringed Anascape Ltd.'s patents with its
WaveBird and Gamecube controllers for the GameCube and Wii Classic
controller for the Wii. The Wii remote and nunchuck controllers were not
included in the suit.
The jury's verdict followed a two-week trial in the U.S. District Court for the
Eastern District of Texas.
"We are extremely pleased with the jury's verdict. Anascape may be a tiny
company compared to Nintendo, but today's verdict confirms that the
company's technology is second to none,” said Doug Cawley of McKool
Smith PC, which represented Anascape.
A representative for Nintendo said the company was planning on appealing
the ruling and that the appeals court would “promptly reduce the dollar
amount of the verdict significantly.”

In other news, the Western District of Washington published its set of proposed patent rules. Check them our by following this link: http://www.wawd.uscourts.gov/proposedlocalrules.htm

I'd like someone to offer to guest blog about these rules since I won't have the time for a while (no Mom, you can't). Please let me know if you have time/interest in writing a little summary of the proposed new rules, and perhaps comparing them to other districts, like the ED Texas, or ND Cal.

Finally, Local software company Widevine Technologies Inc., has expanded its patent infringement case against competitor Verimatrix in the ED of Texas. The suit involves video encryption technology, and since my firm is handling the case on behalf of Widevine, I'll just post some snippets from the recent IP 360 article.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008 --- Widevine Technologies Inc. has stepped up its
legal battle against Verimatrix Inc., filing an amended complaint that adds
another patent to its infringement suit over video encryption technology.
The amended complaint, filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the
Eastern District of Texas, takes aim at Verimatrix's video content authority
system, claiming the VCAS product infringes on Widevine's U.S. Patent
Number 7,376,831, which covers Widevine's Cypher technology for video
encryption.
Widevine first launched its suit against Verimatrix last August over
Verimatrix's alleged infringement of U.S. Patent Number 7,165,175. That
patent, issued in January 2007, covers methods and systems for selectively
encrypting different portions of data, such as video or audio, that are sent
over the Internet, according to the original complaint.
Widevine's amended complaint claims that Verimatrix was already aware of
the '175 patent as early as March 2007, when Widevine sent a letter
informing Verimatrix that the ’175 patent had issued.

That's all for now.