Judge Richard G. Andrews recently issued two pre-trial motions in limine in L-3 Communications Corp. v. Sony Corporation, et al., C.A. No. 10-734-RGA (D.I. 232, 233) (D. Del. Oct. 25, 2013). The Court first excluded defendants’ Request for Ex Parte Reexamination in its entirety. D.I. 232 at 2. There was “no reason” why the request should be admitted into evidence, and the parties agreed that it was prejudicial and “does not aid the jury because it is based on claim constructions which were not adopted.” Id. The Court precluded the request in its entirety because “[s]imply removing the prejudicial statements would be a waste of time and effort, as the remaining contents would not be relevant.” Id. Furthermore, “because [defendants] did not participate in the reexamination, except for the initial request, any reference to [it] as the requester is unfairly prejudicial . . . [therefore] any references to [defendants or their trial counsel] as the requester, either in the rest of the file history or by expert testimony, are precluded.” Id.
Plaintiff also moved to exclude slides allegedly involved in a conference presentation and a draft article related to this presentation, as well as defendants’ expert opinion that these materials were prior art. Plaintiff argued that the presentation and article were hearsay. D.I. 233 at 1-2. The Court concluded that only the publication dates of the documents were hearsay because, other than the date, the documents were not being used to assert the truth of their contents. Id. at 3. The Court then concluded that the draft article was not hearsay because the date in its footer was “probably the statement of a machine and not of a human. If it is a statement of a machine, it is not hearsay.” Id. (internal citations omitted). Furthermore, there was “absolutely no circumstances that give rise to any suspicion that the document has been altered.” Id. As to the slides, however, the only evidence defendants presented that they were used at was the declaration of their alleged presenter, and this could not be used to prove the date. Id. at 4. But the Court believed that “a prima facie case has been made that the deck of slides was presented at the conference,” and thus the Court admitted the evidence, but at plaintiff’s request it would give a limiting instruction that the date of the document was not being offered to prove that the slides were actually presented on the alleged date. Id.
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