Los Angeles, CA
Patent infringement Lawyer at Los Angeles, CA
Practice Areas: Patent Infringement, Trademark Infringement ... +3 more
OUTCOME: dismissal
representing Defendants: in case including patent and trademark infringement claims, court granted Defendants’ motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and improper venue, and denied Plainti ... ff’s request for jurisdictional discovery
OUTCOME: settlement
In a patent infringement case involving blender patents, Plaintiff Sunbeam accused Homeland Housewares, LLC (represented by Cislo & Thomas LLP), among others, of patent infringement. During discovery i ... n the case, Cislo & Thomas LLP learned that one of its former attorneys who while at Cislo & Thomas performed a substantial amount of patent prosecution and litigation on behalf of Homeland Housewares on the same product that was accused of infringement by Sunbeam, now worked at Steptoe & Johnson. Homeland Housewares moved to disqualify Steptoe & Johnson for a conflict of interest based on Virginia Rules of Professional Conduct 1.9(a) and 1.10(a). The main issue was whether the successive representations were substantially related. After a substantial amount of briefing and a hearing, the District Court granted Homeland Housewares’ motion and disqualified Steptoe & Johnson from continuing to represent Plaintiff Sunbeam Products in the case.
OUTCOME: settlement
In a long-running case between two companies in the furniture industry in which, among other things, Amini Innovation Corporation (represented by Cislo & Thomas LLP) has alleged that Collezione Europa ... has infringed a number of its copyrights and design patents, the Court granted Amini Innovation Corporation’s motion for leave to file a second amended counterclaim to the extent the motion sought to add the two individual owners of Collezione Europa into the case as counterclaim-defendants. This case was commenced in 2006 largely as a declaratory relief action by Collezione Europa. Amini Innovation Corporation then counterclaimed for, among other things, copyright and design patent infringement. In 2008, Collezione Europa filed for bankruptcy protection, and the case was automatically stayed pursuant to the bankruptcy laws. Amini Innovation Corporation obtained relief from the automatic stay and ultimately moved the district court for leave to file a second amended counterclaim to add the owners of Collezione as defendants in their individual capacities with a view towards holding them personally liable for Collezione’s allegedly infringing activities. The Court granted this aspect of Amini Innovation Corporation’s motion by rejecting Collezione’s undue delay and futility arguments under Fed.R.Civ.P. 15(a), and noting that individuals who possess the right and ability to supervise the infringing conduct and who have an obvious and direct financial interest in the exploitation of copyrighted material can be held indirectly liable for copyright infringement. This ruling confirms that those with decision-making power in companies that infringe the intellectual property rights of others may be subject to liability for the companies’ infringing acts.
OUTCOME: Defendant's motion to dismiss denied/settlement
On March 16, 2009, a federal judge in the Central District of California denied a Canadian defendant’s motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction where the complaint alleged willful copyright ... and design patent infringement, and the record demonstrated that the defendant knew that the plaintiff resided in Southern California and that the alleged infringements would harm the Southern California company. This ruling is significant in several respects. First, in cases of intellectual property infringement where an out-of-state defendant brings a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(2), if the complaint alleges willful infringement and the plaintiff provides uncontroverted evidence tending to show that the defendant knew the plaintiff was a resident of the forum, then jurisdiction may attach under the Calder effects test. Second, this ruling extends the holding of Amini Innovation Corp. v. JS Imports, Inc., 497 F. Supp. 2d 1093 (C.D. Cal. 2007) to not only out-of-state defendants, but foreign (non-U.S.) defendants, which is particularly significant in today’s global economy. This ruling provides plaintiffs suing out-of-state, or even non-U.S., defendants with a powerful tool to maintain intellectual property lawsuits in the plaintiff’s home forum.
OUTCOME: Defendants' motion to dismiss denied/settlement
New York and Maryland-based defendants were accused of willfully infringing copyrights and design patents owned by plaintiff and covering the ornamental features of the furniture plaintiff sells. Defen ... dants moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and/or improper venue or, in the alternative, to transfer the case to the Southern District of New York. The Court denied defendants’ motion to dismiss under the Calder “effects test†finding that the evidence tended to show that defendants must have known that their alleged willful copyright infringements would cause harm plaintiff, a California corporation. The court denied defendants’ motion to transfer because, among other things, they failed to set forth the identity and anticipated testimony of non-party witnesses who might be inconvenienced by the case going forward in California
OUTCOME: patent invalid/Alan Lee prevailed on appeal
Represented Alan Lee: the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment finding that the asserted claims of the patent-in-suit covering meat-filled rawhide chew toys for dogs ... were invalid for obviousness pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 103
OUTCOME: Plaintiff prevailed on appeal
the Federal Circuit reversed the district court’s order granting summary judgment of non-infringement of a design patent for a dresser since it was improper to focus on specific elements of the dress ... ers rather than analyzing the designs as wholes from the perspective of an ordinary observer. The design patent and a photograph of the competitor’s dresser created a factual issue as to whether an ordinary observer was likely to purchase one dresser thinking it was the other
OUTCOME: Plaintiff's motion granted
court granted Plaintiff’s motion to stay case pending resolution of related case in California
OUTCOME: Defendants' motion denied
a motion for reconsideration of the denial of a motion to transfer venue pursuant to 28 U.S.C.S. § 1404(a) was denied because Defendants failed to show that the cases could have been brought in the tr ... ansferee forum and they possessed "new" evidence supporting minimum contacts with the transferee forum at the time they brought their original motion
OUTCOME: Defendants' motion denied
court denied Defendants’ motion to reopen cases, lift stay, and transfer venue
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