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

Plaintiffs S.O.I.TEC Silicon On Insulator Technologies, S.A. and Commissariat à L’Énergie Atomique (herein collectively, “Soitec”) filed this patent case involving silicon wafer technology against MEMC Electronic Materials Inc. (“MEMC”) on May 19, 2008.
MEMC thereafter answered and asserted counterclaims for infringement.  A jury trial commenced October 25, 2010.  The parties filed post-trial motions in December 2010.  MEMC’s motion for reargument on inequitable conduct was denied.  MEMC “could not move the entry of any evidence absent the aid of witnesses . . . and [t]he court’s civil trial guidelines have long provided that ‘[d]ocuments shall not be admitted except through the testimony of a witness’ . . . ‘[u]nless otherwise permitted upon application by the parties[.]’”
Soitec’s motion for reconsideration of denial of its earlier emergency e-mail request was denied.  Soitec chose to utilize the court’s emergency e-mail procedure to obtain a speedy resolution and “cannot now complain that it was denied the opportunity for further argument[]” due to the inherent limitations imposed by that procedure.
Soitec’s motion for JMOL or, in the alternative, a new trial on invalidity was denied.  The jury could have reasonably found that Soitec failed to meet its clear and convincing burden of proof.  Interestingly, Soitec’s motion was filed untimely pursuant to the parties’ joint stipulation and proposed order extending the deadline to file motions and post-trial briefs.  Thereafter, MEMC argued that Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(b)(2) precluded an extension of the 28-day deadline imposed by Rules 50(b) and 59(b).  Although the court agreed, the motion was considered on the merits pursuant to the “unique circumstances” doctrine.  Under this doctrine, as determined by the Supreme Court in Bowles v. Russell, 551 U.S. 205 (2007), jurisdictional rules cannot be waived, “while compliance with [non-jurisdictional or claims-processing rules] may be waived where the equities permit.”
MEMC’s motion for JMOL or, in the alternative, for a new trial on enablement and obviousness was denied.  As to “first substrate,” “the jury had before it sufficient information from which to reasonably conclude that a person of ordinary skill in the art could perform mono-implantation of hydrogen into a first substrate without undue experimentation.”  As to “mechanical cleaving,” “the jury could have found that MEMC did not meet its high burden of proof[.]”  Similarly, on the issue of obviousness, the jury could have reasonably credited rebuttal testimony to find that “MEMC did not meet its clear and convincing burden[.]”
Soitec’s motion for a permanent injunction and a lift of the stay on damages was denied.  “[I]t is unclear at this juncture what damages discovery will reveal . . . [and] the appropriateness of a permanent injunction cannot be weighed on this record.”  Damages discovery and a schedule will not be set until after the Federal Circuit’s review of the verdict.
Soitec’s motion for leave to file a reply in support of its motion for reargument and to strike MEMC’s reply brief in support for its JMOL/new trial motion was denied as moot.