Judge Andrews recently considered General Motor’s motion to stay pending resolution of its supplier’s declaratory judgment action filed against plaintiff, Pragmatus. Pragmatus Telecom LLC v. General Motors LLC, C.A. No. 12-1545-RGA (D. Del. Oct. 3, 2013). Judge Andrews noted that in many circumstances motions to stay customer cases can be resolved easily. In those cases:
[t]he supplier makes a product, transfers it to the customer, and the customer sells it to third parties. The resolution of the supplier case will almost certainly resolve the customer case. If the supplier wins, the patent holder is collaterally estopped against the customer. If the supplier loses, the patent holder cannot get any additional damages against the customer.
Id. at 1.
The case at hand, however, did not present such an easy question. Even though the customer agreed to be bound by the Court’s infringement decision in the supplier action, “‘with respect to infringement or non-infringement’ of the patents ‘based on [the customer’s] use of the supplier’s technology'”, such an agreement would not “have as much value as a representation that the customer will be bound by the validity/invalidity decision.” Id. at 2 (alteration in original). At least under the facts of this case, and with the absence of such an agreement to be bound, Judge Andrews determined that the equities did not support the granting of a stay. Id.
Pragmatus Telecom LLC v. General Motors LLC, C.A. No. 12-1545-RGA (D. Del. Oct. 3, 2013)
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