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Recently Judge Albright issued an order denying LG Electronics’ Motion to Transfer to the Northern District of California (“NDCA”) in a case filed by co-plaintiffs Ikorongo Texas LLC and Ikorongo Technology LLC. What’s most interesting about this order (not just that it was denied) is Judge Albright’s rationale regarding one of the two plaintiff entities.  As most of you are well aware, Section 1404(a)’s threshold inquiry is whether the case initially “might have been brought” in the proposed transferee forum. Although both Ikorongo and LG agreed that LG committed acts of alleged infringement in the NDCA, and LG has a […]

UPDATED MAR. 4, 2021 We’re jumping back in time a few weeks to cover an event that occurred during the runup to (but wasn’t related to) the MV3 v. Roku trial, and that’s been relatively little-covered by the legal media. Namely, on October 1 the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation issued an order centralizing eight patent cases filed by Proven Networks, LLC in front of Judge Albright. A patent MDL is a relatively rare occurrence: Of the 180 MDLs pending as of October 15, 2020, only 11 (6.1%) involved patent litigations. (Over 57% of pending MDLs are either antitrust- or products-liability-related.) This is arguably unexpected,

Early yesterday afternoon the Waco jury of three women and four men returned a verdict in favor of VLSI to the tune of $2.175 billion.  The jury rejected Intel’s arguments of noninfringement and awarded$1.5 billion for Intel’s infringement of VLSI’s ’373patent and $675 million for Intel’s infringement of VLSI’s ’759 patent (the latter based on infringement under the doctrine of equivalents). The jury also rejected Intel’s claim that the ’759 patent was invalid. Intel did claim one partial victory – the jury found no willful infringement, despite VLSI’s plea during closing argument (available here) that Intel was “wilfully blind” to the

UPDATED FEB. 20 & MAR. 2 Hope all our readers in Texas have held up OK during the deep freeze; we know it’s been very tough for a lot of people. Given the weather-related VLSI–Intel adjournment, there was perhaps less Waco Division-related excitement than we originally expected this week, but we still saw some interesting coverage. But first, one more mini-update re: next week’s VLSI–Intel trial proceedings: On February 16, the Court issued an Order Regarding Sealed Proceedings (ECF No. 427), which we reproduce here in full: In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Court is permitting the trial proceedings in the above case

Yesterday marked the last day of the week-long trial that has pitted some of the best patent litigators in the country against each other, fighting over billions of dollars. In the early part of the day, Intel finished its case and VLSI put on its rebuttal case, consisting mostly of its infringement expert Dr. Conte, plus a short examination of its rebuttal licensing expert Mr. Mark Chambers. After both parties rested, Judge Albright held the charge conference and the case moved to closing arguments. VLSI’s Closing Argument: VLSI’s closing argument, given by Morgan Chu, took a different tone and approach

Here’s a quick update for those of you wondering what’s left in the VLSI v. Intel trial. We’ll have some more substantive content forthcoming, but wanted to get this published while it could still make a difference to those looking to tune in on Monday. Basically, Monday’s going to be the last day for the lawyers to make their case to the jury, and then deliberations will begin either late Monday or first thing Tuesday. When the trial day ended Friday afternoon, VLSI’s lead counsel Morgan Chu was in the midst of cross-examining Dr. Grunwald, the second of Intel’s technical expert witnesses, addressing

Waco Division business keeps churning on, even while there’s a trial underway. So we wanted to bring you a couple general updates that relate to go-forward procedures in Judge Albright’s patent cases. First, the Court has issued another update to its Order Governing Proceedings for Patent Cases (this time version 3.3). Based on our initial review, we understand the major updates to be: Transfer Motions: OGP v3.2 required that motions to transfer be filed no later than 14 days following the Case Management Conference. That requirement has since been abolished. (It was repeatedly waived recently, for motions relating to the continuing pandemic-related unavailability

The long-awaited trial continues, and today included the last two live VLSI witnesses. The first was VLSI’s expert witness Dr. Murali Annavaram. Dr. Annavaram’s testimony was designed to present the technical benefits alleged to be delivered by the technologies of the two patents at issue. Most of his testimony involved discussing the two patents and the problems each were designed to resolve. He also covered his testing methodology, which involved the use of proprietary Intel software models. On cross, Intel focused on two main points. First, Intel pointed out that Dr. Annavaram never interacted with anyone from NXP or Intel,

Things move fast during trial, so we’ll bring you some mini-link roundups during the week specific to VLSI v. Intel, as coverage warrants. For additional first-day coverage, in no particular order we bring you: From Tommy Witherspoon of the hometown Waco Tribune: Waco court hosts billion-dollar patent case against Intel From Bloomberg Law, Matthew Bultman’s Day 1 roundup: Intel, VLSI Patent Jury Trial Kicks Off in Waco After Delay Bid From Law.com, Scott Graham’s analysis of the parties’ respective strategies: How Morgan Chu Is ‘Spoon-Feeding’ a Billion-Dollar Damages Case to Jurors (subscription required) From Law360, Katie Buehler’s scene-setting within the larger context of 2021’s patent

The VLSI-Intel trial is underway (see Mark’s Day 1 writeup), and today’s action was devoted to about 70 minutes of testimony from VLSI inventor David Bearden, with almost the entire rest of the day’s testimony occupied by VLSI’s infringement expert Dr. Tom Conte. VLSI then briefly put on the introductory portions and general qualifications of its expert witness Dr. Murali Annavaram, whose testimony is intended to present the technical benefits allegedly delivered by the technologies of the asserted patents. Much of Dr. Conte’s testimony was under seal—unsurprisingly so, given the sensitive Intel technical documents and source code that are at issue. So what