Posts Tagged: "eastern district of virginia"

SellerBid, Inc. brought the patent infringement lawsuit (see complaint) demanding a jury trial, against Groupon and others on July 20, 2011. Somewhat surprisingly, the lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The Eastern District of Virginia is famously known by attorneys everywhere as “the Rocket Docket,” thanks to how fast cases go from filing to trial. Expect the defendants to seek to remove the case and the Eastern District of Virginia to be sympathetic to the defendants if there is any reason to suspect that SellerBid was merely attempting to manufacture jurisdiction and venue.

Tafas and GSK were recognized with this prestigious award for their successful legal challenge to the claims and continuations rules made final in 2007 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Dr. Tafas was first to file his complaint against the USPTO, which was filed the day after the final rules were announced in August 2007. The rules were not to go into effect until November 1, 2007, and for some time it seemed as if Dr. Tafas alone would take on the Patent Office. In October 2007, after previously promising to challenge the rules, GSK filed its complaint. Armed with the benefit of the Patent Office response to the Tafas complaint, GSK was able to assault the rules from another flank and with full knowledge of how the Patent Office postured itself to defend against Tafas. By challenging immediately Dr. Tafas and his attorneys (Steven Moore and James Nealon of Kelly Drye) did an enormous service for the industry and took the fight to the Patent Office. They exposed the Patent Office and in tandem with GSK were able to keep the USPTO on their heels throughout the proceedings.

On Tuesday, May 25, 2010, Adam Albrett, a patent attorney (Reg. No. 50514) who lives in Fairfax, Virginia, was arrested and charged with making threats on the life of the President of the United States, Barack Obama. At that time an order of temporary detention was issued by US Magistrate Judge Thomas Rawles Jones, Jr., who ordered that Albrett be held in custody pending a detention hearing that was to be held on Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 1:30 pm. Instead of the detention hearing being held today it was deferred until Tuesday, June 1, 2010, at 2:00 pm. Albrett’s temporary detention was extended until that time.

There is more than meets the eye to Nokia selecting the Western District of Wisconsin. According to a study done by Stanford Law Professor Mark Lemley, the average patent litigation is resolved in .56 years, just over 6 months, in the Western District of Wisconsin, which ranks first in terms of time to resolution for patent infringement actions. The Western District of Wisconsin also ranks first in terms of average time to trial, with the average being .67 years, or just 9 months to trial in patent infringement actions. Also, 7.4% of cases proceed to trial, which ranks third.

Over the last several months large law firms have opened Reexamination Practice Groups and even starting blogs dedicated solely or in part to exploring the issues presented by Reexamination.  And as I am writing, PLI is presently hosting day 1 of a two day Reexamination and Reissue program at its San Francisco headquarters. The program titled Reissue and Reexamination Strategies…

By now most are likely aware of, or rapidly becoming aware of, the fact that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has finally done the right thing and has scrapped the claims and continuations rules that have divided the patent community for the last 26 months.  It is impossible not to recognize the new and refreshing tone set by…

I just received word that the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Dr. Triantafyllos Taffas and SmithKline Beecham Corporation (i.e., GlaxoSmithKline) filed a joint request for an extension of time to request either reconsideration or rehearing en banc at the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.  The motion seems to be primarily provoked by the government who…