Intellectual Property Law

Update: Technology Patents LLC v. Deutsche Telekom AG

By Brian Wm. Higgin

     My last update of the Technology Patents LLC v. Deutsche Telekom AG lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland on Nov. 8, 2007, was five weeks ago. Since then, several of the 131 defendants have entered an appearance (or, more precisely, their lawyers have) with the court.

     About half of the non-U.S. defendants still have not entered an appearance, presumably because they have not been served with the complaint, or, if they have, are waiting for a later time to enter an appearance (after all, under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, they have plenty of time to answer the complaint). Some defendants may still be looking for compatible U.S. counsel. 

     Here is a complete list of the parties and their lawyers (parties listed on the left, lawyer on the right), as of January 23, 2008.

    At least two defendants have already replaced counsel of record, but that is not unusual.

     Technology Patents has been stipulating to extensions of time for many of the non-U.S. defendants to answer the complaint.  Some of those defendants do not have to answer the complaint until May 2008.

     This lawsuit really gets going later in the week when a handful of the U.S. defendants, including Microsoft, file their answers to the complaint along with, presumably, counterclaims.

     This lawsuit is assigned to Judge Deborah Chasanow, who presided over two patent lawsuits filed in 2007, and one patent lawsuit filed in 2006, according to published sources. 

Full post as published by Maryland Intellectual Property Law Blog on January 28, 2008 (boomark / email).