Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-5_02-cv-01474/USCOURTS-cand-5_02-cv-01474-14/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 830
Nature of Suit: Patent
Cause of Action: 35:271 Patent Infringement

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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*E-FILED 7/7/06*

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

SAN JOSE DIVISION

BOSTON SCIENTIFIC CORPORATION, ET AL., 

Plaintiffs,

 v.

CORDIS CORPORATION,

Defendant. /

NO. C 02-1474 JW (RS)

ORDER GRANTING LEAVE TO

AMEND FINAL INVALIDITY

CONTENTIONS

I. INTRODUCTION

In this patent infringement action, defendant Cordis Corporation seeks leave to amend its

final patent invalidity contentions, which are required under the local rules. Although Cordis has

previously sought leave to amend its contentions on several occasions, the matters it wishes to raise

now only recently became the subject of certain proceedings in the U.S. Patent and Trademark

office. In view of all the circumstances, including the minimal resulting prejudice, there is good

cause to permit the amendment and the motion will be granted. 

 II. BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs filed this action in March of 2002 alleging that Cordis has willfully infringed two

patents, U.S. Patent Nos. 5,895,385 and 6,010,498. As required by Local Patent Rule 3-6, Cordis

first served its Final Invalidity Contentions in November of 2003. Thereafter, during 2004, Cordis

twice sought leave of Court to amend those contentions, but the presiding judge declined to permit

the amendments Cordis was seeking to make, with the exception that Cordis was allowed to make

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limited changes in light of the claim construction order. In 2005, the undersigned granted another

motion by Cordis for leave to amend its invalidity contentions, during a time period when trial in

this action had been stayed. Each time Cordis sought leave to amend, the Court evaluated whether

Cordis had shown good cause as to the particular proposed amendment and the degree to which

allowing the amendment would cause prejudice to plaintiffs.

On this occasion, Cordis seeks leave to amend its invalidity contentions to add a claim that

U.S. Patent No. 5,122,136 is prior art that either anticipates or renders obvious the asserted claims of

the ’385 and ’498 patents. This request to amend was triggered by the fact that in February of this

year the PTO determined that the ’136 is invalidating prior art to some of the claims in the ’385

patent. Cordis contends that this issue at least potentially raises a similar question as to the validity

of the ’498 patent.

Plaintiffs contend that the PTO’s finding of invalidity as to certain of the claims in the ’385

patent is the result of a simple “clerical” error in the patent specification regarding the chronology of

the prosecution history, and that the error will eventually be remedied through reissue proceedings at

the PTO. Plaintiffs further contend that this issue does not implicate the ’498 patent at all, which

does not contain the same “clerical” error in the specification. 

At the time Cordis filed this motion, this matter was set for trial in September of this year. 

The presiding judge has since vacated that date, and it is not anticipated that trial will occur until

next year.

III. DISCUSSION

Under Patent Local Rule 3-7, a party seeking to amend its final contentions (either

infringement contentions or invalidity contentions) must obtain leave of court by showing “good

cause.” Leave to amend is not granted as freely in this context as in some others.

The patent local rules were adopted by this district in order to give claim charts more

“bite.” The rules are designed to require parties to crystallize their theories of the case

early in the litigation and to adhere to those theories once they have been disclosed . .

. . Unlike the liberal policy for amending pleadings, the philosophy behind amending

claim charts is decidedly conservative, and designed to prevent the “shifting sands”

approach to claim construction. Atmel Corp. v. Information Storage Devices, Inc., 1998 WL 775115 at *2 (N.D.Cal.1998). Although the Patent Local Rules have since

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been amended to make it somewhat easier to amend claim charts, the general

philosophy behind the Patent Local Rules remains as stated in Atmel.

L.G. Electronics, Inc. v. Q-Lity Computer, Inc., 211 F.R.D. 360, 367 (N.D. Cal 2002).

Nevertheless, the policy against allowing parties to cast about for theories or endlessly revise

them should not be so rigidly applied as to preclude a party from asserting a new theory where some

external event has given rise to a recognition that such a theory may be viable. Here, at least as to

the ’385 patent, Cordis is seeking to pursue an invalidity theory that recently has been recognized by

the PTO itself as having sufficient merit that the PTO has, for now, rejected the asserted claims of

the patent. There is no dispute that Cordis brought this motion promptly after the PTO acted. 

Further, there is no suggestion that this is a situation where a party simply came up with a new

theory on its own long after the time that the rules require litigants to “crystalize” their strategies.

Plaintiffs argue that Cordis could have asserted this theory from the outset, because it arises

from a defect that appears on the face of the specification, and because the presiding judge called

attention to that defect in a footnote of his claim construction order more than two years ago. There

is a significant difference, though, between seeing (or failing to see) a possible argument for

invalidity and having the PTO actually reject claims based on that argument.

Not only has Cordis shown a legitimate reason for raising this issue now, but there is little

reason to conclude that plaintiffs will be unduly prejudiced by allowing the amendment. Under

plaintiffs’ own view, these new invalidity contentions will be easily defeated. If plaintiffs are

correct about that, they have little reason to complain. If, conversely, these contentions have merit,

then plaintiffs face the much bigger problem that the claims in dispute may not survive the reissue

process at the PTO. Either way, the mere fact that Cordis has been allowed to amend its contentions

in this proceeding will not cause great hardship to plaintiffs.

From a practical standpoint, Cordis represents, and plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate

otherwise, that the only real burden to the parties of allowing this amendment is that the parties’

respective experts will have to supplement their existing reports and will be subject to additional

deposition. Cordis has offered to produce its expert for further deposition at the office of plaintiffs’

counsel in Boston for that purpose. Cordis has also stipulated that it will not seek summary

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ORDER GRANTING LEAVE TO AMEND FINAL INVALIDITY CONTENTIONS 

C 02-1474 JW (RS) 

4

judgment based on these new contentions. The granting of this motion is conditioned on Cordis

abiding by both those concessions.

The remaining question is whether Cordis should be permitted to amend its contentions as to

both the patents, or only as to the ’385 patent, given that the ’489 patent does not contain the same

error on its face, and that its claims have not been rejected by the PTO. Given that allowing the

amendment as to both patents does not appear to expand significantly the scope of the issues,

however, the Court is not willing to draw a line between them. If plaintiffs are correct, they will

have even less difficulty in defeating these contentions with respect to the ’489 patent.

IV. CONCLUSION

The motion is GRANTED, on the condition that Cordis produces its expert for further

deposition at the office of plaintiffs’ counsel offices in Boston and that Cordis refrain from seeking

summary judgment based on these new contentions. 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: July 7, 2006 

RICHARD SEEBORG

United States Magistrate Judge

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ORDER GRANTING LEAVE TO AMEND FINAL INVALIDITY CONTENTIONS 

C 02-1474 JW (RS) 

5

THIS IS TO CERTIFY THAT NOTICE OF THIS ORDER HAS BEEN GIVEN TO:

Hugh A. Abrams habrams@sidley.com

Edward V. Anderson evanderson@sidley.com, nye@sidley.com

Susan E. Bower sbower@sidley.com

Marc A. Cavan mcavan@sidley.com,

Teague I. Donahey tdonahey@sidley.com, sheila.brown@sidley.com

J. Anthony Downs jdowns@goodwinprocter.com,

Julie Lynn Fieber jfieber@flk.com

Michael Francis Kelleher mkelleher@flk.com,

Amanda Marie Kessel akessel@goodwinprocter.com

Stephanie Pauline Koh skoh@sidley.com,

Tracy J. Phillips tphillips@sidley.com, grodriguez@sidley.com

Matthew T. Powers mpowers@sidley.com, sheila.brown@sidley.com

Patrick E. Premo ppremo@fenwick.com

David T. Pritikin dpritikin@sidley.com

Lisa Anne Schneider lschneider@sidley.com

Roland Schwillinski rschwillinski@goodwinprocter.com,

Georgia K. Van Zanten gvanzanten@sidley.com, nye@sidley.com

Paul F. Ware , JrPC pware@goodwinprocter.com,

Counsel are responsible for distributing copies of this document to co-counsel who have not

registered for e-filing under the Court's CM/ECF program. 

Dated: 7/7/06 Chambers of Judge Richard Seeborg

By: /s/ BAK 

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