With respect to the ’159 and ’216 Patents, Judge Burke found that defendants failed “to sufficiently plead both the ‘who’ of inequitable conduct as well as the scienter requirement.” Id. at 25. Judge Burke explained that “[n]one of [defendants’] allegations tie specific conduct to any specific individual; instead, as to ‘who’ engaged in misconduct before the PTO, every allegation is pled generally, with reference to ‘Invista,’ ‘Applicant,’ ‘they,’ and ‘their.’” Id. at 17. Judge Burke further found that as to knowledge, the “problem with [defendants’] allegations circle[d] back to the Court’s finding with regard to [defendants’] insufficient pleading as to the ‘who’ of inequitable conduct.” Id. at 21. Specifically, Judge Burke explained that “[w]ith no real facts pled that are specific to any individual, there is a clearly insufficient basis to reasonably infer that any particular person . . . did in fact know of the materiality of this data, and intentionally failed to disclose the data or disclosed incomplete data.” Id. at 22. Moreover, with respect to an intent to deceive, Judge Burke noted that defendants failed to satisfy its burden “under Exergen by asserting that ‘Applicant’ or ‘INVISTA’ as a whole had a ‘desire to acquire patent rights in the gas barrier market,’ and then suggest[ing] that this general statement should lead to the inference that" a particular individual "knowingly withheld or misrepresented material data because of a specific intent to deceive the PTO.” Id. at 25.

Judge Burke further found that defendants’ proposed inequitable conduct defense with respect to the ’930 Patent “suffer[ed] from the same fatal flaws” as those related to the ’159 and ’216 Patents. Id. at 28. Specifically, defendants “failed to sufficiently identify the ‘who’ of [the] inequitable conduct,” which in turn “doom[ed] [defendants’] allegations regarding the scienter requirements of inequitable conduct in relation to the ’930.” Id. Judge Burke additionally found that defendants failed to sufficiently plead “but-for” materiality with respect to the ’930 Patent. Id. at 29. As Judge Burke explained, “[m]ere claims that the PTO would not have granted the patent had it known of the omission or misrepresentation are insufficient because they are conclusory legal conclusions under Iqbal.” Id.

- “w/v”

- “w/v of citric acid”

- “parenteral composition”

- “preparing”

- “combining”

Defendant also argued that plaintiff’s indirect infringement claims should be dismissed for failure to adequately plead “the requisite underlying direct infringement [and] the necessary knowledge and intent.” Id. Judge Sleet found, however, that plaintiff sufficiently pled the direct infringement prong by alleging that “on any given day 60,000,000 people (i.e., users) play Defendant’s games on social websites” and that the “games’ users . . . put the invention into service, control the operation of the system as a whole and obtain [a] benefit from it.” Id. Further, with respect to the knowledge and intent requirements for induced infringement, Judge Sleet contrasted the instant complaint from the deficient complaint in Chalumeau Power Sys. LLC v. Alcatel-Lucent, C.A. No. 11-1175-RGA (D. Del. Jul. 18, 2012) (discussed previously here). Id. at 3 n.1. In the Chalumeau complaint, there were “only insufficient factual assertions to support the legal conclusion of actual knowledge, and no factual assertions at all to support the legal conclusion of specific intent.” Id. In the instant matter, Judge Sleet found that knowledge was sufficiently pled since plaintiff alleged that it sent a letter to defendant’s officers with a full copy of the asserted patent on June 30, 2011. Id. Further, Judge Sleet found that plaintiff provided “several factual assertions permitting a reasonable inference that [defendant] acted with the requisite specific intent.” Id. With respect to the contributory infringement claim, Judge Sleet again found knowledge sufficiently pled based on the allegations related to plaintiff’s letter with the asserted patent attached. Id. Further, Judge Sleet found that plaintiff provided allegations sufficient to permit “the reasonable inference that [defendant] was aware that its games were ‘especially adapted for use in infringement’ of the ’928 Patent.” Id. Specifically, plaintiffs alleged that “[d]efendant has specifically designed, developed, and acquired [its] on-line games for game players to use on target websites” and that defendant "admits in its amended IPO statement that its games require game players (users) to access the internet, Facebook (or any target website [defendant] engages).” Id.

The Court next addressed the defendant’s inequitable conduct defense, which was based on an alleged “misrepresentation” to the PTO during reexamination. Id. at 11. Specifically, the defendant argued that in response to a rejection during reexamination of certain claims as anticipated by a reference, the plaintiff argued that the reference “did not disclose a ‘maximum duty cycle signal provided by an oscillator,’” implicitly asserting that such an oscillator would be novel. Id. at 11-12. According to the defendant, such oscillators were well known in the art, and “the Examiner only withdrew the rejection because he mistakenly believed that an oscillator providing a maximum duty cycle was novel.” Id. at 12. The Court noted, however, that the plaintiff had disclosed other prior art referencing such oscillators, and in any event because the rejection was based on claims initially found to be anticipated, “[t]he arguments [the inventor] presented to the PTO were limited to the specific disclosure of the [specific] reference and focused on the differences between that reference and the claims.” Id. at 13. Accordingly, the Court found that no misrepresentation had been made to the PTO. Further, because the Examiner “identified an oscillator with a maximum duty cycle signal in at least one additional prior art reference,” the Court could not “conclude that the Examiner considered the oscillator to be a point of novelty.” Id. In short, the inventor “credibly testified that he believed the Examiner was aware that oscillators with maximum duty cycle signals were known in the prior art. . . . This belief is more than reasonable given that the Examiner expressly identified such an oscillator in the Office Action and signed several Information Disclosure Statements indicating that he considered the references [the Plaintiff] submitted that disclose this feature.” Id.

Judge Sleet, however, found that “summary judgment briefing would be wasteful and premature at this stage.” Judge Sleet accepted three arguments against summary judgment proffered by the plaintiff. First, the plaintiff argued that because it had no opportunity to conduct fact or expert discovery, it would respond to a summary judgment motion with a Rule 56(d) declaration. Second, the plaintiff argued that a supposed limitation of the claims of the patent-in-suit was not actually present in the claims and that claim construction would be necessary to determine what was claimed. Finally, the plaintiff argued that even if there were no literal infringement, it was entitled to assert infringement under the doctrine of equivalents, which would require both discovery and claim construction. Accepting all three of these arguments, Judge Sleet found the “summary judgment request to be inappropriate at this juncture.” Id.

Although the ’505 patent was terminally disclaimed over the ’808 patent, Gevo alleged that claims of the ’505 patent were “distinct from those of the ’808 patent [and] thus, Gevo’s assertion of infringement of the ’808 patent [did] not necessarily implicate the ’505 patent.” Id. at 5. Judge Robinson concluded, however, that “[c]omparing the claims of the ’505 patent and the ’808 patent . . . there are substantial similarities in the claimed subject matter.” Moreover, “the pattern of litigation between the parties and the close relationship between the patents constitute facts sufficient to show the existence of an actual controversy between the parties.” Id. Futhermore, Gevo’s assertion that it “lack[ed] sufficient information regarding the fermentation conditions of Butamax and DuPont’s products to determine if they infringe the ’505 patent” was unconvincing given that “the ’505 patent in a continuation of the ’808 patent and Gevo has not offered Butamax and DuPont a covenant not to sue on the ’505 patent.” Id. at n.3. Accordingly, Judge Robinson found that a sufficient controversy existed for declaratory judgment jurisdiction and denied the motion to dismiss.