New General Orders Assigning EDTX Civil and Criminal Actions
When your district gets two new judges in the same month you get – two new orders assigning civil & criminal actions, and not always just to the judges you’d expect.
Month: May 2019
Motions for Protective Order and In-House Counsel
This protective order opinion addresses the question of disclosure of certain information to a specified in-house counsel. It provides one of the relatively rare examples of a court resolving protective order disputes in an opinion which explains why the requested language was or was not adopted. (With dreadnought-sized footnotes).
86th Texas Legislature – Actions of Interest to Federal Practitioners
The regular session of the 86th Legislature ended on Monday on this week. It saw 7,324 bills introduced, of which 1,429 bills were passed and sent to Governor Abbott. The Governor has until Sunday, June 16, 2019, to sign, veto, or allow to become law (without his signature) any of the legislation that was passed during the regular session. Of all the bills that did (or did not) become law, I selected a few – all on the same topic – that I thought might be of interest to practitioners in federal court.
Another Patent Damages Expert Order
I don’t mean to sound like I don’t like these orders because I do – they’re always informative and provide a useful explanation of what precisely about a damages expert’s opinion is and is not admissible. So let’s see what this opinion can tell us about the not particularly common application of the Panduit factors relevant to claims of lost profits.
“Trial Procedure” – Federal Court Practice seminar
I’m headed to Austin Thursday afternoon to present on trial procedure in federal court at TexasBarCLE’s Federal Court Practice seminar on May 31, 2019, at the Texas Law Center (that’s the State Bar building for non-Bar types). I have attached the brochure below, and you can attend live both in person or via the webcast. For more information go here, and subscribers click on through for the paper itself. As noted, it was originally co-written by Magistrate Judge Roy Payne, also of Marshall, so any errors have surely crept in since then.
On the way down I have a bit of a pit stop in Dallas to participate in the planning meeting for the 57th annual session of the CAIL IP Conference in Plano. I co-chaired the event in 2016 and 2017, and always enjoy the planning process – mainly because they let me put the topics on the whiteboard. I enjoy that and there’s a limit to how much trouble you can get into holding a dry-erase marker.
An Indefinite Smile
I challenge you to find a happier 16 year old than this one, who spent the first day of his summer vacation getting some stick time in a World War II trainer, as reported by the local paper. He was, in fact, smiling as broadly as I expect the defendants were when they got Judge Kernodle’s 122 page claim construction order in this 11 patent case raising over 30 terms, which addressed their indefiniteness arguments. They did pretty well.
Another Section 101 Ruling from Waco
Another Waco case ruling on a defendant’s claim that the asserted claims are unpatentable subject matter.
Motion for Venue Discovery
Plaintiff sought “targeted venue discovery” based on arguments made by the defendants at a recent hearing on the defendant’s motion for reconsideration of denial of their prior venue motion.
Stay Thirsty, my friends.
Your may have a good office location. But do you have an 18 wheeler of Dos Equis in front of your office on a Friday afternoon?
Motion to Strike Claim Construction Expert’s Declaration
As I posted several months ago, and more recently in connection with a recent decision, last year’s EDTX rule changes included a new requirement regarding expert disclosure at the P.R. 4-3 stage. We now have a second opinion interpreting the new provision in light of a dispute that has arisen over it.