In this time of concern and disruption over Covid-19, I and my colleagues at Susman Godfrey (SG) are busy taking steps to safeguard our firm family while continuing to be proactive in protecting the interests of our clients and moving matters forward as necessary and appropriate. I hope that you, your colleagues, and your families
Commercial Appeals Roundup: Weeks of 3-9-20 and 3-2-20
- Magistrate judge can’t rule on whether to appoint receiver. media.ca1.uscourts.gov/pdf.opinions/1
- Inventors‘ hiding their offer to sell oil recovery method from USPTO invalidated patents. cafc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/
- Patent infringement that doesn’t happen until after importation supports exclusion order. cafc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/
- Facebook users had standing to sue over misuse of URL data in their
Commercial Roundup: Week of 2-24-20 Appeals
- Buyers of auto parts didn’t agree to arbitrate antitrust claims against suppliers by taking on Limited Warranty servicing duties. opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/2
- Comcast must answer monopolization claims in case over local cable ads markets. media.ca7.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/rssExe
- Rampant use of Western Union’s money-transfer system to commit fraud didn’t give rise to strong inference that execs
Commercial Appeals Update: Week of 2-10-20
- Expert’s claim of “stigma” to land value from gas pipeline didn’t pass Rule 702 muster. www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/18312
- Letter that implied lessee paid royalties to wrong entity didn’t meet notice requirement of Louisiana statute. ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/1
- Presence of servers in district didn’t count as regular place of business under patent venue statute. cafc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/
Weekly Case Roundup
FTC Defeats Qualcomm in Fight over Monopoly in Smartphone Chips
United States District Judge Lucy Koh ruled on May 22, 2019, after a 10-day bench trial in January, that Qualcomm has and abused “monopoly chip power”. Qualcomm Findings and Conclusions 5-22-19.
AT&T Wins Permission to Marry Time Warner
Judge Richard Leon, of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, ruled today that the United States failed to persuade him to block AT&T’s bid to acquire Time Warner under antitrust law. See the 172-page opus here: AT&T Opinion 6-12-18
LIBOR Over-the-Counter Plaintiffs Win Class Certification of Price-Fixing Claims Against Banks
Today, United States District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald in Manhattan issued LIBOR VII, in which the court granted class certification under Rule 23(b)(3) to a class of plaintiffs who bought over-the-counter instruments that paid interest in terms of the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) and who allege that LIBOR-setting banks conspired to suppress LIBOR
Multiples for Pharma Buyers Pursuing Opt-Out Antitrust Claims
Existential threshold
The number of companies that can bring treble-damages claims against drug manufacturers for violating federal antitrust law has dwindled. The scarcity has grown so acute that last week it crossed an existential threshold.
Continue Reading
Pharma Buyers Too Few for Class
U.S. District Judge Mitchell S. Goldberg ruled on August 28, 2017 that a class of 24 to 25 direct purchasers did not satisfy the “numerosity” requirement of Rule 23(a)(1) for class certification. Florence Drug Co. of Florence, Inc. v. Cephalon, Inc., No. 06-c-1797, ECF 1072 (E.D. Pa. Aug. 28, 2017), on remand from In