Judge Andrews has issued orders on motions to dismiss and sever in IPLearn, LLC v. BeeLine Acquisition Corp., C.A. No. 11-825-RGA (D. Del. July 2, 2012). As in other recent orders, Judge Andrews found that compliance with Form 18 is all that is needed to state a claim of direct infringement, citing In re Bill of Lading Transmission and Processing System Patent Litigation, 2012 WL 2044605 (Fed. Cir. June 7, 2012). He further found that the “plaintiff names specific products, and thus more than meets the requirements of Form 18.” Id. at 2. Judge Andrews also stated that the “allegations [were] insufficient to state a claim for indirect infringement” because there was “no allegation stating that [the defendant’s] customers directly infringe.” Id.
With regard to contributory infringement and induced infringement, Judge Andrews found that the allegations were “wholly devoid of any identifiable factual information.” In considering the requirement of knowledge of the patent, however, Judge Andrews noted: “I think that an allegation that a defendant was served with a complaint alleging patent infringement sufficiently alleges a factual basis that, beginning with the date that the complaint was served, the defendant knew of the patent. It does not provide any basis for knowledge predating such service.” Id. at 3 n.4.
Judge Andrews also granted motions to sever based on the Federal Circuit’s recent decision in In re EMC Corp., 677 F.3d 1351 (Fed. Cir. 2012). As Judge Andrews explained, “The Federal Circuit’s standard is that defendants should not be ‘joined under Rule 20’s transaction-or-occurrence test unless the facts underlying the claim of infringement asserted against each defendant share an aggregate of operative facts.’ Further, ‘joinder is not appropriate where different products or processes are involved.’ And, ‘independently developed products using differently sourced parts are not part of the same transaction, even if they are otherwise coincidentally identical.’” IPLearn, at 2 (citations omitted). Because there were no allegations in the complaint of any connection between the moving defendants or their products and any other defendant, Judge Andrews granted severance.
IPLearn, LLC v. BeeLine Acquisition Corp., C.A. No. 11-825-RGA (D. Del. July 2, 2012).
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