Delaware Patent Litigation Report : Delaware Intellectual Property Lawyer & Attorney : Morris James Law Firm : Delaware Patent Litigation Report

Plaintiff is a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in St. Louis, Missouri and asserts infringement of its patents, which relate to data and communications cable.  Defendants are related corporations, one of which is Korean with its principal place of business in Korea.  The American company is a New Jersey corporation with its principal place of business in New Jersey.  Defendants contest personal jurisdiction and venue in Delaware because the defendants do not reside in Delaware.  Defendants further allege that plaintiff’s attempt to serve process on the Korean corporation was inadequate.  According to plaintiff, defendants have ongoing business relationships with numerous regional distributors in the United States and have entered into multi-million dollar contracts with large United States corporations to supply and service their cable products within Delaware and throughout the United States.  Furthermore, plaintiff alleges that defendants have embarked on an aggressive marketing effort to distribute their products throughout the United States.  Applying the dual jurisdiction analysis the Court finds that while plaintiff's arguments concerning defendants' distribution agreements and contracts might establish an intent on defendants' behalf to serve the Delaware market, plaintiff fails to satisfy the second prong - to show with reasonable particularity that any of the accused products ended up in Delaware.

Plaintiff also argues for specific jurisdiction based on defendants' acquisition of a Delaware corporation, and based on defendants' distribution agreements.  However, apart from ownership of a Delaware corporation and the distribution agreements, plaintiff presents no competent evidence of any specific activity or contacts by defendants in Delaware.  Mere ownership of a Delaware corporation is not sufficient to confer personal jurisdiction over a non-resident defendant.  Plaintiff merely advances general assertions that the distributors with whom defendants have contracted service Delaware customers.  Therefore, plaintiff has failed to satisfy the specific jurisdiction prong of Delaware's long-arm statute.  Plaintiff has advanced sufficient factual allegations to justify jurisdictional discovery.  In addition, because venue hinges on the resolution of the personal jurisdiction question and in light of the Court's determination to allow jurisdictional discovery, the defendants' motion to dismiss for improper venue is denied without prejudice.  Finally, the court grants an extension of time to address service of process of the Korean entity.