Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited et al v. Actavis Laboratories FL, Inc. et al

Filing 140

MEMORANDUM ORDER: The issued raised in Defendant's letter (D.I. 130 ) have been considered, and the Order of May 19, 2017 (D.I. 129 ) will not be altered. Signed by Judge Richard G. Andrews on 5/31/2017. (nms)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF DELAWARE

OREXIGEN THERAPEUTICS, INC.,
Plaintiff;
V.

Civil Action No. 1: 15-cv-451-RGA

ACTAVIS LABORATORIES FL, INC.,
Defendant.

MEMORANDUM ORDER
Defendant has submitted a letter related to Defendant's new non-infringement defenses
raised for the first time in the pre-trial order. (D.I. 130). In a Memorandum Order issued the
same day Defendant submitted its letter, I found that "Defendant has waived the right to contest
the following limitations of the asserted claims: (1) 'bupropion ... effective to induce weight
loss' ('626 and '111 patents); (2) 'naltrexone ... effective to enhance the weight loss effect of
the bupropion' ('626 and '111 patents); and (3) 'sustained release' ('111 and '195 patents)."
(D.I. 129 at 5). This decision was based on the fact that Defendant had, prior to submitting the
pre-trial order, failed to contest infringement of these limitations or allege failure of proof as to
any of these limitations. (Id. at 4-5).
I have read Defendant's letter and all of the cases Defendant cites as support for its
argument that Plaintiff should not be "relieved" of its burden to prove infringement. I am not
persuaded.
As an initial matter, I note that Defendant is correct in pointing out that Plaintiff has the
burden to prove infringement. This does not mean, however, that Defendant can propound new

theories of non-infringement or failure of proof on the eve of trial. Defendant's cases do not
suggest otherwise. For example, in Finjan, the plaintiff moved for JMOL after a jury returned a
verdict of noninfringment, arguing that the defendant had not challenged infringement at trial.

Finjan, Inc. v. Symantec Corp., 2013 WL 5302560, at *22 (D. Del. Sept. 19, 2013), afj'd, 577 F.
App'x 999 (Fed. Cir. 2014). The court denied plaintiffs motion, noting that it was plaintiffs
burden to prove infringement. Id. at *23. This case merely stands for the uncontroversial
proposition that it is the patentee's burden to prove infringement. The case says nothing about
whether a defendant can wait until the eve of trial to respond to Plaintiffs requests that
Defendant describe the legal and factual bases for its noninfringement contentions.
I am equally unpersuaded by Defendant's citations to cases that purportedly support its
position that interrogatory responses are not binding. In one case, the court noted that the party
had timely supplemented its discovery response and further clarified, "This is not to say that
[Plaintiff] can forever avoid summary judgment by amending its responses to defendants'
interrogatories, but rather that [Plaintiffs] initial interrogatory responses are not binding at this
stage." Intellect Wireless, Inc. v. T-Mobile USA, Inc., 735 F. Supp. 2d 928, 937 (N.D. Ill. 2010).
Here, Defendant never supplemented its interrogatory responses. Defendant cannot credibly
argue that service of its portion of the pre-trial order constituted a good faith attempt to timely
supplement its discovery responses. None of the additional cases cited by Defendant provide
support for Defendant's position.
In essence, Defendant's position is that it can make discovery useless as a way to narrow
down the disputed issues in a case. That position is inconsistent with the exhortations in the
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. For example, as a general matter, trial courts are supposed to
administer the rules "to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination" of the case. Fed.

2

R. Civ. P. 1. Trial courts may hold conferences for the purpose of "discouraging wasteful
pretrial activities." Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(a )(1 ). The "scope of discovery" is supposed to be
"proportional to the needs of the case." Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(l). As identified in my earlier
order, Defendant timely raised various non-infringement or "failure of proof' positions during
the course of discovery. (D.I. 129 at 3-4). It could have put Plaintiff on notice that it was not
conceding other specific infringement allegations. It did not. Thus, Defendant misled Plaintiff
as to what the issues in the case were. Defendant does not offer any good reason for doing so. I
do not consider Defendant's proffered reason, that is, that Plaintiff's experts made damaging
admissions during deposition (D.I. 130 at 2-3 & n. 2) on what were then uncontested issues, as
being a good reason, as Defendant's position is essentially that any narrowing of the case which
it represents is occurring during the course of discovery is illusory. 1 I do not think this is correct.
Thus, while I have considered the issues raised in Defendant's letter, I am not going to alter the
Order of May 19, 2017 (D.I. 129).

Entered thisJ

1

J day of May, 2017.

For reasons that are properly unknown to me, Defendant replaced one set of well-regarded attorneys with a
different set of well-regarded attorneys in March 2017 (compare D.I. 109 with D.I. 110), which was when expert
depositions were about to take place. The second set of attorneys seems to have had major differences of opinion
with the first set not only on Defendant's approach to infringement but also to invalidity. I have allowed the change
in positions on invalidity, as I think the change could be allowed without any significant prejudice to Plaintiff. (See
D.I. 129 at 3). The same is not the case in regard to infringement, as allowing Defendant to change its noninfringement theories at this late date would require Plaintiff to produce evidence it has not had a fair opportunity to
fully develop in support of claim limitations it reasonably believed were not contested.

3

I
I