Worlds Inc (WDDD)

[LouisDesyjr]

Summary Judgement hearings usually held after Markman

http://www.finnegan.com/resources/articles/articlesdetail.aspx?news=e3962a13-b898-4102-8fca-171c656a6ed2

http://law.lclark.edu/live/files/9706-brunetpdf

I expected, before I did some research, that the MSJ would need to be held before a Markman hearing, but from the two sources above, I now see that most of the time that a Markman would expect to be held before any MSJ. (Both sides need a chance to do discovery before they should be arguing that they are entitled to a judgement in their favor.)

In the typical case, it looks like that you would need the Markman first in order to have a clear idea of what was being contested and then could file for a MSJ. i.e. Can't expect to have a party be able to argue that they should be given a summary judgment unless everything has been defined.

With the WDDD vs ATVI case, I think that this was an exception to that, since if there was a problem with the patent dates, then there would have been no patent and no patent to sue on.

Since the patent date issue has been resolved with the USPTO correction, it seems that the court should go back to what would be the typical timeline for a case like this, Markman first and then later any MSJ.

The problem is that now the MSJ has already been scheduled, it looks like that will have to be done first before the Markman can be held, but it is possible that the court could hold both on the same day, October 17th, or a little afterwards since it is clear how the court should rule on the MSJ on the patent dates.

Louis J. Desy Jr.
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