Judge Andrews Dismisses Contributory Infringement and Accelerates Infringement Contentions

January 5, 2016

Publication| Intellectual Property

In Tailstream Technologies LLC v. TeraRecon Inc., C.A. No. 15-625-RGA (D. Del. Nov. 30, 2015), Judge Andrews determined that concerns over the sufficiency of plaintiff’s induced infringement claims would be remedied by the proposed “supplemental” complaint. However, neither the original complaint nor the proposed supplemental complaint sufficiently alleged contributory infringement; as such, the “boilerplate” contributory infringement claims were dismissed from the supplemental complaint without leave to amend.

Judge Andrews also took the unusual step of accelerating the case schedule. Plaintiff’s motion for leave to file a supplemental complaint attached an email in which plaintiff’s counsel expressed to defense counsel that plaintiff wanted “to move the case forward on the merits.” After granting the motion to amend and dismissing the contributory infringement claims, Judge Andrews quoted counsel’s email and ordered that, “[c]onsistent with that desire,” plaintiff must provide its preliminary infringement charts by December 18, 2015—14 business days from the date of the order.

Analysis: This ruling is consistent with Judge Andrews’ recent decisions pressing the expeditious litigation of claims where the merits may be determined early in a case. The Court’s directives may have been a means to flesh out whether the induced infringement claims, “not much better than the contributory infringement claims,” would in fact survive litigation.

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