The Judges of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California have approved amendments to Patent Local Rules 3-2, 3-4, 3-8 and 3-9, with a new Rule 3-10, to achieve the following goals:
- Require the party asserting infringement to produce all licenses that may be relevant to the accused instrumentality without worrying about “comparability” and without limitation to licenses that might be relevant only to hypothetical license negotiations, because such agreements are relevant for other purposes, and relevance is in the eye of the beholder;
- Require greater specificity regarding damages theories, and then hold the disclosing party to their disclosed theories absent leave of court, as our rules do with other kinds of contentions; and
- Require a meeting between counsel and clients to discuss settlement shortly after service of the damages contentions, with a written certification that the meeting occurred but without a discussion of the content of the meeting.
Please visit Patent Local Rules webpage to see the amended rules.