Just over three years ago, the Delaware Supreme Court held in Marchand v. Barnhill that the failure to maintain an internal monitoring system that could have prevented a deadly listeria outbreak gave rise to an actionable oversight claim against the board of directors under In re Caremark International Inc. Derivative Litigation. Although the Delaware Supreme Court…

Welcome to the latest edition of the Richards, Layton & Finger Intellectual Property Law Update.  As always, if you have questions about any of the decisions discussed below or the District of Delaware in general, please let us know. Judge Noreika Excludes Expert Damages Testimony for Failure to Apportion Value in LicenseIn Rex Medical L.P. v.…

In Sanofi-Aventis U.S. LLC v. Apotex Corp., No. 20-804-RGA (Sept. 15, 2022), Judge Andrews adopted the recommendation of Magistrate Judge Hall that claim preclusion should bar the plaintiff’s assertion of infringement of one of the asserted patents.  The parties had litigated the patent at issue in an earlier case, after which the plaintiff had amended claims…

In ArcherDX, LLC v. Qiagen Sciences, LLC, No. 18-1019-MN (Sept. 30, 2022), Judge Noreika granted the defendants’ request for remittitur.  The plaintiffs had prevailed at trial on patent infringement claims.  The jury had awarded more than $1.5M in domestic reasonable royalty damages to the plaintiffs, which the parties agreed was a mistake—as the defendants noted, the…

In Victaulic Company v. ASC Engineered Solutions, LLC, No. 20-887-GBW (Oct. 3, 2022), Judge Williams denied the defendant’s request under Fed. R. Civ P. 42(b) first to try the parties’ contract dispute and separately to try their patent infringement dispute later only if needed.  The plaintiff alleged that the defendant manufactured products that fell outside the…

In Sysmex Corp. v. Beckman Coulter, Inc., No. 19-1642-GBW (Oct. 12, 2022), newly appointed Judge Williams granted the plaintiffs’ motion to strike one of the defendant’s lack of written description defenses.  As part of the narrowing of prior art references and invalidity defenses before trial, the court had granted the plaintiffs’ request to require the defendant…

In Rex Medical L.P. v. Intuitive Surgical, Inc., No. 19-0005-MN (Oct. 13, 2022), Judge Noreika excluded under Daubert the reasonable royalty testimony of the plaintiff’s damages expert.  To determine the starting point for the hypothetical negotiation, the expert relied on a lump-sum royalty license that the plaintiff had entered into with third-party Covidien as part of…

On October 19, 2022, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) released a new “Know Your Rights” poster, which updates and replaces the previous “EEO is the Law” poster.  Under federal law, all covered employers are required to prominently display the poster at their worksite in a conspicuous location where notices to applicants and employees are…

On August 1, 2022, Section 102(b)(7) of the Delaware General Corporation Law (the DGCL) was amended to permit a corporation to include in its certificate of incorporation a provision to eliminate or limit the monetary liability of certain corporate officers for breach of the duty of care. Previously, the protection afforded by a so-called exculpatory provision…

In November 2021, the State of Delaware issued its climate action plan (the “Climate Plan”) after a process of workshops, surveys, and review of comments from stakeholders. The Climate Plan follows a series of specific actions to address climate issues in Delaware, including enactment of the Renewable Energy Portfolio Standards Act; participating in the National Clean…