By Dennis Crouch
Rates Technology and James Hicks v. Mediatrix Telecom (Fed. Cir. 2012)
James Hicks represented Rates Technologies (RTI) in the litigation against the accused infringers (including Mediatrix) in the Eastern District of New York. During discovery, the court found that RTI had failed to adequately answer several interrogatory answers and, as a litigation sanction, dismissed the case and fined RTI and Hicks $43k each. RTI did not appeal. However RTI's attorney Hicks did appeal – arguing that he should not be personally sanctioned because the information needed to answer the interrogatory was not within his personal possession and because the discovery orders were not directed personally toward him. The Federal Circuit rejected those arguments.
The primary contention interrogatory at issue is perhaps the most basic for any patent infringement case. The question is:
Separately for each claim of the Patents-in-suit that [RTI] contends is infringed, state the basis for that contention, including … identification on an element-by-element basis of the component … of each accused Mediatrix product that allegedly satisfies each element.
RTI apparently never answered this question.
Pre-Filing Information Insufficient: Before filing a patent infringement lawsuit, the plaintiff's attorneys are required to conduct some amount of reasonable inquiry to comply with Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. This typically includes an element-by-element analysis to ensure that the accused products actually infringe the asserted patent. Of course, before filing, the scope of a plaintiff's knowledge is often limited. The patentee likely lacks technical information associated with the accused products (as well as full knowledge of the defendants' product lines). Thus, a full infringement contention normally requires some amount of discovery from the accused infringer. Further complicating this cat-and-mouse game of discovery is the fact that plaintiffs prefer to delay fully explaining their infringement contentions in order to maintain flexibility in the litigation and to keep opposing counsel guessing.
One solution proposed by Peter Menell, et al., in their newly updated Patent Case Management Judicial Guide is to require infringement and invalidity contentions be exchanged early in the case – certainly before claim construction. Most local patent rules follow that process and judges then use the contentions in thinking about the claim construction and also to limit discovery. The problem with this approach is that the claim construction tends to significantly alter the case and may well require amendments to the contentions.
