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Law360 (April 29, 2021, 8:59 PM EDT) -- A six-year dispute between ChanBond and Cox Communications over high-speed networking patents is headed for an in-person jury trial in May after a Delaware federal judge on Thursday rejected Cox's bid to push back the start date again over COVID-19 concerns.
U.S. District Judge Richard G. Andrews said in an oral order that the consolidated trial will start May 20, rejecting Cox's argument that another delay is warranted because it's "highly unlikely" all trial participants can get vaccinated against the coronavirus by then. The oral order was issued on the case docket without any explanation of the judge's reasoning.
The case was originally scheduled to go to trial last July, but Judge Andrews put it on hold after Cox asked for a delay given the risks posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Patent-holding company ChanBond had opposed Cox's request for another delay, citing improving pandemic conditions that it said should allow the trial to proceed safely.
Cox had argued that conditions are actually worse now than they were when the trial was postponed in the summer, with a substantially higher death rate and higher infection levels and cases. In urging the court to delay the trial once again, Cox cited a recent statement from Delaware Chief Justice Collins J. Seitz that announced plans to resume jury trials in June, which Cox said suggested that they could not be conducted safely before then.
The case has been simmering in Delaware federal court since 2015, when ChanBond filed a flurry of suits against 12 telecom businesses, including Cox, Atlantic Broadband Group LLC and Comcast Corp., which were consolidated for pretrial purposes in 2017. ChanBond's case against Cox is the first to go before a jury.
ChanBond accuses the companies of selling internet connections that infringe patents covering a method of improving how data is transmitted by using multiple, bonded transmission channels, according to the initial complaints.
Cox is fighting to reopen discovery in order to present new evidence that allegedly shows that ChanBond's attorney "flatly advised his client to conceal documents to gain a litigation advantage." Those documents purportedly showcase an "ongoing struggle over ownership of ChanBond," which Cox says would impact the case, according to a March 17 joint status report.
ChanBond called that argument "baseless."
Judge Andrews' order comes as several courts have restarted in-person jury trials in patent cases. U.S. District Judge Alan Albright has held several in-person trials in the Western District of Texas amid the pandemic, including the first in-person patent trial in the country this year. On March 2, the jury in that case awarded a $2.2 billion win to patent holding company VLSI Technology LLC after finding that Intel Corp. ripped off two of VLSI's computer chip patents.
In mid-March, a federal jury in North Carolina handed a portable solar company more than $10.6 million in damages in a patent case following a two-day trial. That case had been initially scheduled for January, but U.S. District Judge Martin Reidinger postponed it until March, citing the pandemic.
Counsel for ChanBond and Cox case not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The patents-in-suit are U.S. Patent Nos. 7,941,822; 8,341,679; and 8,984,565.
ChanBond is represented by Robert A. Whitman, Mark S. Raskin, John F. Petrsoric, Michael DeVincenzo and Andrea Pacelli of King & Wood Mallesons, Stephen B. Brauerman of Bayard PA and George T. Shipley of Shipley Snell Montgomery LLP.
Cox is represented by Jennifer Ying and Jack B. Blumenfeld of Morris Nichols Arsht & Tunnell LLP and Michael L. Brody, Saranya Raghavan, Krishnan Padmanabhan, David P. Enzminger, Nimalka Wickramasekera and James C. Lin of Winston & Strawn LLP.
The case is ChanBond LLC v. Atlantic Broadband Group LLC et al., case number 1:15-cv-00842, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware.
--Additional reporting by Dani Kass, Rose Krebs, Katie Buehler and Clark Mindock. Editing by Jill Coffey.
For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.
