Federal Judiciary

Motion to Bifurcate and Stay Defendants' Non-Patent Counterclaims Denied

By Michael C. Smith

j2 Global Communications Inc v. Captaris Inc (6-08-cv-00262) (E.D. Tex. April 16, 2009)
Judge: John D. Love   
Holding: Motion to Bifurcate and Stay Non-Patent Counterclaims DENIED without prejudice
Interesting case last week from Judge Love on bifurcation in a patent case.  In j2 Global v. Captaris, the defendants brought antitrust and unfair competition counterclaims against the plaintiff.  Plaintiff's motion to bifurcate defendant's anti-trust and unfair competition claims, and stay discovery on them until after the trial on the plaintiff's patent claims was denied despite the court's acknowledgement that "the Federal Circuit has described bifurcation of patent claims and antitrust claims as a 'standard practice.' "
The court found that it could not at this stage reliably determine whether bifurcation would increase or decrease judicial economy. While of course a separate patent trial could obviate the need for trial on the antitrust counterclaims, Judge Love noted that if the Court were to stay discovery related to Captaris's antitrust claims now, a trial on these claims could be pushed back until long after the trial on the patent claims, which would dramatically decrease judicial economy.  Accordingly he denied the motion without prejudice to refiling, noting that the issue of whether the trial should be bifurcated could be revisited after discovery was complete - but that the Court anticipated that if it was, he would use the same jury "so as not to lose the jurors' familiarity with the parties and technology at issue."
Note: The image is a "bifurcation tree" from a discussion of chaos theory - which is actually sometimes contended to be what bifurcation creates, come to think of it.  The ratio of the bifurcations of the tree is called Feigenbaum's Delta, after its inventor Mitchell Feigenbaum, who discovered in 1975 that there was a mathematical constant that described the onset of chaos, and other graphical representation of it are even more disturbing if you're as compulsive-retentive as me.  I'm not aware of any opinions relating chaos theory to bifurcation, but then I haven't read all of Judge Clark's opinions lately.

Full post as published by Eastern District of Texas Federal Court Practice on April 20, 2009 (boomark / email).