Surgical Instrument Service Company, Inc. v. Intuitive Surgical, Inc.

Filing 440

ORDER FOLLOWING JURY CHARGE CONFERENCE. Signed by Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin on January 27, 2025. (amolc3, COURT STAFF) (Filed on 1/27/2025)

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1 2 3 4 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 5 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 6 7 SURGICAL INSTRUMENT SERVICE COMPANY, INC., et al., 8 Plaintiffs, 9 10 United States District Court Northern District of California 11 v. Case No. 21-cv-03496-AMO ORDER FOLLOWING JURY CHARGE CONFERENCE INTUITIVE SURGICAL, INC., Defendant. 12 13 During the conference discussing the Court’s Tentative Jury Charge, counsel for Plaintiff 14 Surgical Instrument Service Company, Inc. (“SIS”) objected to the Court’s proposed instruction 15 regarding single-brand aftermarket. See ECF 437 at 23. The Court declined to remove the 16 instruction at the conference, indicating that a plaintiff seeking to establish a single-brand 17 aftermarket needs to satisfy the four-part test from Epic Games, Inc. v. Apple, Inc., 67 F.4th 946, 18 977 (9th Cir. 2023). However, based on counsel’s argument and the evidence presented in this 19 case, SIS does not contend that Defendant Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (“Intuitive”) lacks market power 20 in the purported market of minimally-invasive soft tissue robots and that Intuitive’s customers are 21 “locked-in” to an alleged single-brand aftermarket of replacement and repaired EndoWrist 22 instruments. See Eastman Kodak Co. v. Image Tech. Servs., Inc., 504 U.S. 451, 464-66, 476-78 23 (1992); Newcal Indus., Inc. v. Ikon Off. Sol., 513 F.3d 1038, 1051-52 (9th Cir. 2008). To the 24 contrary, SIS asserts that Intuitive has market power in the purported market of minimally- 25 invasive soft tissue robots. See Eastman Kodak, 504 U.S. at 464-66. In light of this theory of the 26 case, the Court finds the proposed jury instruction requiring SIS to prove the Epic v. Apple factors 27 unnecessary. The Court will accordingly not provide that instruction to the jury. 28 1 Intuitive requested edits to the proposed instructions on pages 20 and 46 of the Tentative 2 Jury Charge stating that consideration of the Section 2 claim is limited to evidence presented in 3 support of SIS’s Section 1 tying and exclusive dealing claims. That is not an accurate statement of 4 the law, and the Court declines Intuitive’s proposed edits accordingly. United States District Court Northern District of California 5 During the conference, Intuitive requested an additional jury instruction about evidence 6 regarding design changes to X and Xi model Endowrists. Reviewing it as a stand-alone 7 instruction, the Court proposed some edits to Intuitive’s proposal and indicated that it would be 8 included among the final instructions. Upon further reflection, and in trying to work the design 9 instruction into the jury charge, the Court concludes that it will ultimately be more confusing than 10 helpful to the jury to instruct them about the consideration of design evidence. Thus, it will not be 11 included. 12 13 14 IT IS SO ORDERED. Dated: January 27, 2025 15 16 ARACELI MARTÍNEZ-OLGUÍN United States District Judge 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 2

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