As part of the Hatch-Waxman Act, given the lack of information on the allegedly infringing product, courts have found that patentees can satisfy the pleading requirements of Twombly/Iqbal without having access to the accused...more
Executive Summary: On April 27, 2021, a sharply divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, covering New York, Vermont, and Connecticut, held that in Fair Labor Standards Act Overtime cases (FLSA), to...more
Most states have adopted a version of what is typically referred to as the “Malfunction Theory” that permits circumstantial proof of a product defect in a product liability action. The Malfunction Theory largely corresponds...more
December 1, 2020 marked the five-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s abrogation of Form 18—the model complaint that provided the minimum requirements for stating a claim of direct infringement. Following the abrogation...more
Medical device manufacturers who seek to dispose of meritless claims at the initial pleading stage have long relied upon the doctrine of federal regulatory preemption. This doctrine is embodied by 21 U.S.C. § 360k(a), the...more
In Part I of this series, we discussed institutional bad faith and best practices for insurers to minimize the risk of these costly and intrusive lawsuits. In Part II, we will focus on cutting discovery off at the...more
The Second Circuit has breathed new life into Sarah Palin’s case against the New York Times by rejecting the use of an unusual “Iqbal” hearing to determine the plausibility of her allegations....more
On March 12, 2019, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued an Opinion in GEOMC Co. v. Calmare Therapeutics Inc., 918 F.3d 92, which clarifies the previously amorphous standard for pleading affirmative defenses. The...more
A recent District Court decision serves as a reminder to both Plaintiffs and Defendants to properly scrutinize a complaint for well-pleaded factual allegations. In Walker v. Lyons, Doughty & Veldhuis, P.C., et. al, No....more
The U.S. Supreme Court’s blockbuster rulings in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal represented a major shift in federal pleading standards. Resolution of motions to dismiss frequently turns on whether a...more
A recent opinion from the Northern District of Texas is a reminder to all patent practitioners to heed pleading standards when drafting a complaint for patent infringement. In Lexington Luminance LLC v. Service Lighting and...more
On May 18, 2018, United States District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein granted in part and denied in part Defendant Microsoft Corporation (“Microsoft”)’s motion to dismiss Holotouch, Inc. (“Holotouch”)’s complaint. Microsoft...more
After having its complaint for patent infringement dismissed for failure to state a claim and being denied its request to file an amended complaint in the Middle District of Georgia, Disc Disease Solutions turned to the...more
The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“Federal Circuit”) addressed the pleading standards for direct infringement, doctrine of equivalents infringement, indirect infringement and willful infringement in...more
In what may result in a fundamental transformation of pleadings challenges, the Second Circuit is set to address the propriety of a so-called Iqbal hearing – an apparent first of its kind....more
In a recent decision in In re Paulsboro Derailment Cases, the Third Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a case brought by plaintiffs who alleged that they had been exposed to airborne chemicals following a train derailment....more
The District of Massachusetts recently grappled with the proper analytical standard when faced with a Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss in a patent infringement case. Judge Burroughs held that the familiar...more
Judge Allison Burroughs of the District of Massachusetts recently issued a decision that provides much-needed insight into pleading standards in patent cases. With the demise of Form 18 of the Federal Rules of Civil...more
In a recent opinion out of the District of Massachusetts, the court ordered that a patent infringement dispute between two Massachusetts-based competitors in the lighting systems industry would be allowed to proceed. This...more
Addressing the pleading standard under which a joint patent infringement claim must be reviewed, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a complaint of patent infringement, finding that the...more
Earlier this year, we discussed the potential ramifications of the December 2015 amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure on the pleading standard of infringement following the decision in Rembrandt Patent...more
Plaintiffs bringing patent infringement complaints under the Iqbal/Twombly pleading standard should take notice. On September 30, 2016, a panel of the Federal Circuit affirmed a district court’s dismissal of a deficient...more
On September 30, 2016, the Federal Circuit issued an opinion affirming the District Court for the Southern District of New York’s dismissal of the plaintiff ’s complaint under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) because the complaint...more
How explicitly must a complaint sounding in antitrust allege causation? At oral argument last week, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit evaluated the sufficiency of the plaintiffs’ allegations that certain Takeda...more