Month: March 2022

Congratulations to my cocounsel Jason Hoffman of Baker Hostetler (shown straddling the Texas/Arkansas state line after the successful SJ hearing) for successfully arguing for a summary judgment of patent noninfringement.

Judge Robert W. Schroeder III accepted Magistrate Judge Roy Payne of Marshall’s report and recommendation that summary judgment of noninfringement be granted as to plaintiff Alexsam, Inc.’s claims in two cases, and entered final judgment.

I have to give Jason complete credit because he argued the summary judgment motion successfully to Judge Payne in November without me – because I was in trial with Judge Gilstrap upstairs.  He then argued the  motion successfully to Judge Schroeder in Texarkana in February, again without me, because I was … in another trial with Judge Gilstrap in Marshall.

But Jason doesn’t need a lot of guidance – he was part of our trial teams in Marshall 2011 and 2013 (a total of four jury trials)) which resulted in three noninfringement verdicts from Marshall juries.  We did lose invalidity at trial that summer, but the Federal Circuit later reversed that verdict.

All three 2013 trials were conducted in the historic 1901 county courthouse in Marshall, whose old district courtroom we use when there are already two patent trials going on in the federal courthouse.  Judge Michael Schneider (who, coincidentally had seen his first trial in this courtroom half a century before as a junior high student in Hallsville, and credited it to causing him to want to be a lawyer instead of a minister) set the invalidity trial first, followed by the seven infringement trials spaced three weeks apart for the rest of the summer – two of which actually took place.  As you can tell from the attached photo taken during setup, there are worse places to try a case.

But no trial for us this time.