Zenith Radio Corp. v. Radio Corp. of America

16 F.R.D. 356, 103 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 170, 1954 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4252
District Court, D. Delaware·Decided October 12, 1954·No. Civ. A. No. 1247·Published·Cited by 2 cases

Opinion

LEAHY, Chief Judge.

Pre-trial Order No. 1 provides for a separate issue of validity and infringement of defendants’ counterclaim patents. Pre-trial Order No. 2 provides’for the order of trials of those issues. Such trials will be had prior to the trial of any other issue in the cases at bar.

[358]*358Extensive discovery proceedings have occurred as to the issues of validity and infringement; and counsel has most recently attended proceedings on these matters on January 21 and 22, 1954, March 1 and 2, 1954, and April 1, 1954. By opinion of May 20, 1954, the Court ruled on various documents withheld by defendants. See Zenith Radio Corp. v. Radio Corporation of America, D.C.Del., 121 F.Supp. 792. The disclosure or nondisclosure of other additional withheld writings of defendants will be decided, infra, in this Pre-trial Order No. 3. Defendants have and are now making available to plaintiff certain documents (previously identified and withheld) under Order of this Court of May 7, 1951, as to patents identified in Exhibit A to the Pre-trial Order No. 2.

The most recent pre-trial conference was held on September 24,1954, at which time all counsel participated and were heard.

Now, upon the orders heretofore entered by this Court and the proceedings thereunder, the pre-trial conference of September 24, 1954, and upon all the pleadings heretofore filed, and the remainder of the paper record, and after all counsel have been heard, it is ordered:

1. (a) Plaintiff shall give to each defendant notice in writing of any instance where it will attempt to carry dates of anticipation back of record dates of defendants’ patents and as provided in § 282 of Title 35 of the United States Code, of the country, number, date, and name of the patentee of any patent, the title, date, and page numbers of any publication to be relied upon as anticipation of the patent in suit or, as showing the state of the art, and the name and address of any person who may be relied upon as the prior inventor or as having prior knowledge of or as having previously used or offered for sale the invention of the patent in suit.

(b) Each defendant shall notify plaintiff in writing of any instances where any defendant will rely at the trial on earlier dates of invention than the filing dates of the applicable patent applications and advise plaintiff of the dates of invention, conception, disclosure and reduction to practice and of the names of persons and of the written material upon which it will rely for such purpose.

(c) Exchange of the material, supra, shall be made as to each patent at least 30 days prior to the trial of that patent as set forth in Groups I to VIII in Pretrial Order No. 2, May 20, 1954.

2. Written statements of the substance of expert and technical testimony to be relied upon at the trial shall be exchanged as follows:

(a) Defendants shall, 60 days prior to trial of each group of patents, submit to plaintiff a written statement of the substance of defendants’ expert testimony with respect to the subject matter and scope of such patents and a description of the characteristics of plaintiff’s apparatus to be relied on to establish alleged infringement.

(b) Plaintiff shall, 20 days prior to trial of each group of patents, submit to defendants a written statement of the substance of its expert testimony to be relied on to establish the alleged invalidity and non-infringement of such counterclaim patents and a statement of the extent of its agreement and disagreement with defendants’ description of the characteristics of plaintiff’s apparatus.

(c) Defendants and plaintiff shall agree on a time, not later than 15 days prior to the trial of each group of patents, and place, for conducting joint tests with respect to any disagreement concerning the characteristics of plaintiff’s apparatus.

3. (a) Defendants shall furnish to plaintiff copies of all documents which defendants intend to produce at the trial not later than 30 days prior to the trial of each group of patents.

(b) Plaintiff shall 10 days thereafter, furnish to defendants copies of all documents which plaintiff intends to produce at the trial. At the same time, [359]*359plaintiff shall furnish to defendants a statement setting forth which of defendants’ proposed documents plaintiff will stipulate to admit at the trial subject only to objections as to relevancy and materiality together with a statement of plaintiff’s objections to other of defendants’ documents.

(c) Defendants shall, 10 days thereafter, furnish to plaintiff copies of all documents which defendants intend to produce at the trial in rebuttal to plaintiff’s documentary case, together with a statement of defendants’ objections with respect to plaintiff’s documents, and a statement setting forth which of plaintiff’s proposed documents defendants will stipulate to admit at the trial subject only to objections of relevancy and materiality.

4. (a) At the opening of the trial of any group of patents to be tried, defendants shall offer in evidence their documents and exhibits relating to such group of patents. The documents shall be appropriately marked and identified, arranged in related groups, and shall identify the patent to which they relate. A short written summary indicating the contents of such documents, the portion thereof relied upon, the significance thereof and whether such document has been objected to by plaintiff shall be filed therewith and served on plaintiff.

(b) At the conclusion of defendants’ proof with respect to any such group of patents, plaintiff shall similarly offer in evidence its documents and shall file and serve a similar summary statement therewith.

(c) Thereafter, identical procedure will be followed with respect to each succeeding group of patents.

5. The parties shall, when portions only of books and documents are admissible as relevant and material, prepare and supply copies of those portions only, with due identification of source. The whole of such books or documents, however, shall be made available to counsel in the initial exchange of documents— and thereafter, if necessary—between the parties for purposes of identification and for cross-examination.

6. (a) No party shall object to introduction into evidence of any document on the ground a photostatic copy has been offered instead of the original documents.

(b) No party shall object to introduction into evidence of the whole or any portion of any foreign or domestic publication or of quotations from any foreign patent law or from any foreign or domestic publication on the ground such publication has not been certified or authenticated provided such publication is plainly identified, and is available or made available, on request, to the other party.

(c) No party shall object to introduction into evidence of any copy of a United States patent or foreign patent obtained from the files of the United States Patent Office on the ground the original has not been offered.

(d) Dates of filing, the grant, acceptance, issuance or publication appearing on all letters patent shall, in the absence of proof to the contrary, be considered the dates of filing, the grant, acceptance, issuance, or publication, respectively, of such patents or publications, but shall not be considered proof of the contents of the application as filed.

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Zenith Radio Corp. v. Radio Corp. of America, 16 F.R.D. 356, 103 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 170, 1954 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4252 (D. Del. 1954).

16 F.R.D. 356 (Zenith Radio Corp. v. Radio Corp. of America) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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