Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Intellectual Property Law Blogs -> Delaware IP Law Blog

Intellectual Property Law

: Delaware IP Law Blog

Judge Robinson: All Accenture v. Guidewire Motions Denied

By Karen E. Keller, Andrew A. Lundgren et al.

Late last week, Judge Robinson issued a memorandum opinion in Accenture Global Services GMBH v. Guidewire Software Inc., C.A. No. 07-826-SLR (D. Del. Mar. 5, 2010) (in addition to the claim construction opinion that we posted about yesterday, and the order staying the case that we posted about just over a week ago). In this opinion, Judge Robinson denied several motions, including Defendant's motions for summary judgment on anticipation, obviousness, indefiniteness, non-infringement, and trade secret misappropriation, and Plaintiff's motion to strike Defendant's on-sale bar arguments and documents because they were not identified in its invalidity contentions during discovery.

Plaintiff's motion to strike was denied due to a lack of prejudice, and the fact that they had actual notice. Defendants' on-sale bar motion was denied because they provided no "clear and convincing evidence that [supposed on-sale bar product] met all of the limitations of an asserted claim," because it was missing some enabling portions of the specification, and "the (albeit few) missing enabling portions of the specification may have been added" after the critical date. Id. at 19.

Defendant's anticipation motion was denied because there are still issues of fact (as evidenced, according to the Court, by the fact that Defendant submitted over 5000 pages of material to the Court for consideration), and because "defendant's wholesale grouping of limitations [in its anticipation analysis] does not allow for the requisite demonstration of the manner in which the elements of the asserted preior art system are arranged." Id. at 38-41.

One final item of interest was how the Court, in denying Defendant's indefiniteness motion, used Defendant's own anticipation motion against it:

Notably, defendant has moved for summary judgment that claim 6 of the '284 patent is anticipated and obvious in view of the three prior art systems noted supra. Certainly defendant's assertion that the claim can be (positively) contrasted with the prior art is at odds with the assertion that the bounds of the claim are indeterminable.

Id. at 41-42 (emphasis added).

Accenture Global Services GMBH v. Guidewire Software Inc., C.A. No. 07-826-SLR (D. Del. Mar. 5, 2010)

Full post as published by Delaware IP Law Blog on March 09, 2010 (boomark / email).