Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Judge Gilstrap Grants 101 Motion Disposing of eDekka Cases; Requires 285 Briefing w/i 14 Days

Originally published by Michael C. Smith.

Marshall courthouseEDekka v. 3Balls.com, Inc., 2:15cv541-JRG (9/21/15)

eDekka LLC has filed approximately 253 cases in the Eastern District since 2013, all involving one patent.  The 2015 tranche consisted of approximately 101 cases filed just under five months ago, 84 of which were consolidated earlier this year.  The first two years’ cases were filed by a different attorney, with the 2015 filings by the Austin Hansley PLLC firm.

Following status conference, the Judge Gilstrap set the defendants’ motions to dismiss for lack of patentable subject matter under Rule 12(b)(6) for hearing.  As I posted last week occurred in another case, he similarly converted the motions to summary judgment motions after noting the submission and consideration of matters outside of the pleadings.

This morning the Court granted the motions in an 8 page order.  As a threshold issue, Judge Gilstrap concluded that claims construction was not necessary in this case because even accepting eDekka’s proposed construction, the Court’s 101 analysis would be the same.  With respect to the analysis under Alice, the Court found that the asserted claims were directed to an abstract idea, and accordingly that the challenged claims were ineligible for patent protection.on the ground that they are directed to unpatentable subject matter

The Court followed with a brief sua sponte order directing all briefing under Section 285 to be filed within 14 days as a consolidated brief.

I do not have exact statistics handy, but that’s one order, entered a little under five months after the filing of the cases which disposed of approximately a tenth of the patent cases filed in Marshall this year.

Curated by Texas Bar Today. Follow us on Twitter @texasbartoday.



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