Although similar in many respects to other forms of complex civil litigation, patent cases pose distinctive case management challenges. The Patent Case Management Judicial Guide, available for download online, is designed to be a comprehensive, user-friendly, and practical judicial guide for managing these cases. In 2006, Peter S. Menell, professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley, and director of the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology, and colleagues surveyed the range of approaches and perspectives on patent case management. Their goal was to foster discussion and analysis of patent case management techniques and develop an authoritative guide for judges, law clerks, practitioners, and patent and civil procedure professors and scholars. For example, patent cases employ unique procedures (such as claim construction hearings) that affect and interact with other aspects of the case (such as summary judgment motions and expert reports) in ways that create unusual scheduling and complexity. In addition, patent cases often entail difficult discovery issues, extensive use of experts, and complex dispositive and pre-trial motion practice. Although judges in some districts have partially codified recommended practices in the form of Patent Local Rules, standing orders, and patent jury instructions, these documents do not address the full range of distinctive challenges posed by patent litigation. The nearly completed guide addresses these issues across more than 500 pages of text that include chapters on general principles for effective patent case management, preliminary injunction, discovery, claim construction, summary judgment, and pre-trial management.

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Posted January 21st, 2009 under Tech Transfer

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