Northbrook Digital, LLC v. Vendio Servs., Inc. (D. Minn. Dec. 28, 2009)

In this case, the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota required that defendant pay reasonable fees incurred by plaintiff for supplemental claim construction briefing.  The parties submitted a joint claim construction statement in April 2009 and submitted an amended joint claim construction statement in late July 2009.  The defendant then "argued for claim constructions [in its early November 2009 Markman brief] that varied (in some cases significantly) from the constructions offered" by the defendant in the previous joint claim construction statements.  At the Markman hearing, when asked by the Court about this issue, the defendant "failed to provide satisfactory explanation for having changed its claim-construction positions in the roughly three months between late July and early November."

The Court stated in its opinion that it "disapprove[d]" of defendant's behavior and defendant "made the Court's claim construction task more difficult than it already was."  As the Court "could benefit from further briefing" on certain claim construction issues and the defendant's "misbehavior has made this additional briefing necessary, [defendant] should pay for it."

Thanks go out to the Docket Report blog for its initial reporting of this case.