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Marshall Status conferences - questions on P.R. 3-1 deadlines

By Michael Smith

I have already gotten calls from attendees at yesterday's conferences who said that they heard that the deadlines for PR 3-1 is 34 days after the conference, not 24 as I wrote yesterday - and for the 8:30 and 9 am conferences, they're right.  At those conferences, the court stated that (and I'm paraphrasing)  ten days after the orders are due (14 days from yesterday) was the date that was "deemed" to be the status conference.  Of course 3-1 PICs are due ten days after that (let's not get into the fact that the patent rule deadline was changed via rule amendment 1/1/2008 to make that date ten days BEFORE the status conference, or that that change has been postponed to 1/14 - regardless of what the local rule says, might say or will say, the individual judge can set that date whenever they want, and Judge Ward appears to be sticking with the ten days post right now).  14 + 10 + 10 = 34 days till PR 3-1 disclosures.  We all scribbled this down and compared notes and all came up with 34 days to PR 3-1.
But at the later conferences in the day which I attended (meaning 9:30, 10:30, 11 and 1:30, plus the ensuing quarter-hour ones) the court phrased it differently, stating that the turn-in of the reports at 14 days after the status conference was deemed the date of the scheduling conference for purpose of calculating PR 3-1 disclosures, so PRs under that would be due at 14 + 10 = 24 - and that's what I posted (there was a little checking done that I won't get into that confirmed at least in my mind that that's what the court probably intended, and it is more logical that turning in the orders = scheduling conference).

Further supporting this is language I saw this morning in an order in one of my early cases, which stated "The Court further instructed the parties that the time for complying with P.R. 3-1 would be 10 days after the date of the parties filing their proposed orders."  So that ought to settle things, even for the early cases. 

Full post as published by Eastern District of Texas Federal Court Practice on January 09, 2008 (boomark / email).