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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT 

COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT 

OF TEXAS MARSHALL DIVISION

SOCIAL POSITIONING INPUT 

SYSTEMS, LLC

Plaintiff, 

v. 

VALVE CORPORATION

Defendant

Civil Action No. 2:23-cv-422-JRG-RSP 

DOCKET CONTROL ORDER

In accordance with the scheduling conference held in this case, it is hereby ORDERED

that the following schedule of deadlines is in effect until further order of this Court: 

CURRENT

DATE

AMENDED 

DATE

June 2, 2025 *Jury Selection – 9:00 a.m. in Marshall, Texas

7 days before 

Jury Selection

*Defendant to disclose final invalidity theories, final prior

art references/combinations, and final equitable defenses.1

10 days before 

Jury Selection

*Plaintiff to disclose final election of Asserted Claims.2

May 5, 2025 * If a juror questionnaire is to be used, an editable (in

Microsoft Word format) questionnaire shall be jointly

submitted to the Deputy Clerk in Charge by this date.3

April 28, 2025 *Pretrial Conference – 9:00 a.m. in Marshall, Texas

before Judge Roy Payne

1 The proposed DCO shall include this specific deadline. The deadline shall read, “7 days before Jury Selection,” 

and shall not include a specific date.

2 Given the Court’s past experiences with litigants dropping claims and defenses during or on the eve of trial, the

Court is of the opinion that these additional deadlines are necessary. The proposed DCO shall include this specific

deadline. The deadline shall read, “10 days before Jury Selection,” and shall not include a specific date. 3 The Parties are referred to the Court’s Standing Order Regarding Use of Juror Questionnaires in Advance of Voir 

Dire

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April 21, 2025 *Notify Court of Agreements Reached During Meet and

Confer

The parties are ordered to meet and confer on any 

outstanding objections or motions in limine. The parties 

shall advise the Court of any agreements reached no later 

than 1:00 p.m. three (3) business days before the pretrial 

conference.

April 21, 2025 *File Joint Pretrial Order, Joint Proposed Jury Instructions,

Joint Proposed Verdict Form, Responses to Motions in

Limine, Updated Exhibit Lists, Updated Witness Lists, and

Updated Deposition Designations

April 14, 2025 *File Notice of Request for Daily Transcript or Real Time

Reporting.

If a daily transcript or real time reporting of court 

proceedings is requested for trial, the party or parties 

making said request shall file a notice with the Court and 

e-mail the Court Reporter, Shawn McRoberts, at

shawn_mcroberts@txed.uscourts.gov.

April 7, 2025 File Motions in Limine

The parties shall limit their motions in limine to issues that 

if improperly introduced at trial would be so prejudicial 

that the Court could not alleviate the prejudice by giving 

appropriate instructions to the jury. 

April 7, 2025 Serve Objections to Rebuttal Pretrial Disclosures

March 31, 

2025 

Serve Objections to Pretrial Disclosures; and Serve 

Rebuttal Pretrial Disclosures

March 17, 

2025 

Serve Pretrial Disclosures (Witness List, Deposition 

Designations, and Exhibit List) by the Party with the 

Burden of Proof 

February 24, 

2025 

*File Motions to Strike Expert Testimony (including

Daubert Motions)

No motion to strike expert testimony (including a Daubert 

motion) may be filed after this date without leave of the 

Court. 

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February 24, 

2025 

*File Dispositive Motions

No dispositive motion may be filed after this date without 

leave of the Court. 

Motions shall comply with Local Rule CV-56 and Local 

Rule CV-7. Motions to extend page limits will only be

granted in exceptional circumstances. Exceptional

circumstances require more than agreement among the

parties.

February 18, 

2025 

Deadline to Complete Expert Discovery

February 3, 

2025 

Serve Disclosures for Rebuttal Expert Witnesses

January 13, 

2025 

Deadline to Complete Fact Discovery and File Motions to 

Compel Discovery 

January 13, 

2025 

Serve Disclosures for Expert Witnesses by the Party with 

the Burden of Proof 

January 28, 

2025 

Comply with P.R. 3-7 (Opinion of Counsel Defenses) 

January 7, 

2025 

*Claim Construction Hearing – 9:00 a.m. in

Marshall, Texas before Judge Roy Payne

December 24,

2024 

December 20,

2024 

*Comply with P.R. 4-5(d) (Joint Claim Construction

Chart)

December 17,

2024 

*Comply with P.R. 4-5(c) (Reply Claim Construction

Brief)

December 10,

2024 

Comply with P.R. 4-5(b) (Responsive Claim Construction 

Brief)

November 26, 

2024 

Comply with P.R. 4-5(a) (Opening Claim Construction 

Brief) and Submit Technical Tutorials (if any)

Good cause must be shown to submit technical tutorials 

after the deadline to comply with P.R. 4-5(a).

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November 26, 

2024 

Deadline to Substantially Complete Document Production 

and Exchange Privilege Logs 

Counsel are expected to make good faith efforts to produce 

all required documents as soon as they are available and 

not wait until the substantial completion deadline.

November 12, 

2024 

Comply with P.R. 4-4 (Deadline to Complete Claim 

Construction Discovery) 

November 5, 

2024 

File Response to Amended Pleadings 

October 22, 

2024 

*File Amended Pleadings

It is not necessary to seek leave of Court to amend 

pleadings prior to this deadline unless the amendment 

seeks to assert additional patents.

4

October 15, 

2024 

Comply with P.R. 4-3 (Joint Claim Construction 

Statement)

September 24, 

2024 

Comply with P.R. 4-2 (Exchange Preliminary Claim 

Constructions) 

September 3,

2024 

Comply with P.R. 4-1 (Exchange Proposed Claim Terms) 

September 15, 

2024 

Comply with Standing Order Regarding Subject-Matter 

Eligibility Contentions5

September 15, 

2024 

Comply with P.R. 3-3 & 3-4 (Invalidity Contentions) 

April 15, 2024 *File Proposed Protective Order and Comply with

Paragraphs 1 & 3 of the Discovery Order (Initial and

Additional Disclosures)

The Proposed Protective Order shall be filed as a separate 

motion with the caption indicating whether or not the 

proposed order is opposed in any part. 

4 Further amended pleadings will not moot Valve’s currently filed 12(b)(3) motion. 5

http://www.txed.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/judgeFiles/EDTX%20Standing%20Order%20Re%20Subject%20M

atter%20Eligibility%20Contentions%20.pdf [https://perma.cc/RQN2-YU5P]

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April 15, 

202486

*File Proposed Docket Control Order and Proposed

Discovery Order

The Proposed Docket Control Order and Proposed 

Discovery Order shall be filed as separate motions with the 

caption indicating whether or not the proposed order is 

opposed in any part.

(*) indicates a deadline that cannot be changed without an acceptable showing of 

good cause. Good cause is not shown merely by indicating that the parties agree 

that the deadline should be changed.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS

Mediation: While certain cases may benefit from mediation, such may not be 

appropriate for every case. The Court finds that the Parties are best suited to evaluate whether 

mediation will benefit the case after the issuance of the Court’s claim construction order. 

Accordingly, the Court ORDERS the Parties to file a Joint Notice indicating whether the case 

should be referred for mediation within fourteen days of the issuance of the Court’s claim 

construction order. As a part of such Joint Notice, the Parties should indicate whether they 

have a mutually agreeable mediator for the Court to consider. If the Parties disagree about 

whether mediation is appropriate, the Parties should set forth a brief statement of their 

competing positions in the Joint Notice. 

Summary Judgment Motions, Motions to Strike Expert Testimony, and Daubert 

Motions: For each motion, the moving party shall provide the Court with two (2) hard copies 

of the completed briefing (opening motion, response, reply, and if applicable, sur-reply), 

excluding exhibits, in D-three-ring binders, appropriately tabbed. All documents shall be 

single-sided and must include the CM/ECF header. These copies shall be delivered to the 

Court within three (3) business days after briefing has completed. For expert-related motions, 

complete digital copies of the relevant expert report(s) and accompanying exhibits shall be 

submitted on a single flash drive to the Court. Complete digital copies of the expert report(s)

shall be delivered to the Court no later than the dispositive motion deadline.

Indefiniteness: In lieu of early motions for summary judgment, the parties are directed 

to include any arguments related to the issue of indefiniteness in their Markman briefing, 

subject to the local rules’ normal page limits.

Lead Counsel: The Parties are directed to Local Rule CV-11(a)(1), which provides 

that “[o]n the first appearance through counsel, each party shall designate a lead attorney on 

the pleadings or otherwise.” Additionally, once designated, a party’s lead attorney may only 

be changed by the filing of a Motion to Change Lead Counsel and thereafter obtaining from the 

Court an Order granting leave to designate different lead counsel. The true lead counsel should 

be designated early and should not expect to parachute in as lead once the case has been 

6 See Dkt. 22 (granting Joint Motion for Extension of Time to Submit Proposed Docket Control and Discovery 

Orders to April 15, 2024).

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largely developed. 

Motions for Continuance: The following will not warrant a continuance nor justify a 

failure to comply with the discovery deadline: 

(a) The fact that there are motions for summary judgment or motions to dismiss pending;

(b) The fact that one or more of the attorneys is set for trial in another court on the same

day, unless the other setting was made prior to the date of this order or was made as a

special provision for the parties in the other case;

(c) The failure to complete discovery prior to trial, unless the parties can demonstrate that

it was impossible to complete discovery despite their good faith effort to do so.

Amendments to the Docket Control Order (“DCO”): Any motion to alter any date

on the DCO shall take the form of a motion to amend the DCO. The motion to amend 

the DCO shall include a proposed order that lists all of the remaining dates in one 

column (as above) and the proposed changes to each date in an additional adjacent column 

(if there is no change for a date the proposed date column should remain blank or 

indicate that it is unchanged). In other words, the DCO in the proposed order should be 

complete such that one can clearly see all the remaining deadlines and the changes, if any, to 

those deadlines, rather than needing to also refer to an earlier version of the DCO. 

Joint Pretrial Order: In the contentions of the Parties included in the Joint Pretrial 

Order, the Plaintiff shall specify all allegedly infringed claims that will be asserted at trial. 

The Plaintiff shall also specify the nature of each theory of infringement, including under 

which subsections of 35 U.S.C. § 271 it alleges infringement, and whether the Plaintiff 

alleges divided infringement or infringement under the doctrine of equivalents. Each 

Defendant shall indicate the nature of each theory of invalidity, including invalidity 

for anticipation, obviousness, subject-matter eligibility, written description, enablement, or 

any other basis for invalidity. The Defendant shall also specify each prior art reference 

or combination of references upon which the Defendant shall rely at trial, with 

respect to each theory of invalidity. Other than as set forth in the above deadlines, the 

contentions of the Parties may not be amended, supplemented, or dropped without leave of 

the Court based upon a showing of good cause. The Parties in a case which has been 

consolidated for pre-trial purposes and which is moving towards a separate trial on the 

merits (subsequent to pre- trial) shall file, as an exhibit to the parties’ Joint Pretrial Order, 

a list identifying all docket entries from the lead case that relate to the applicable member case. 

Trial: All parties must appear in person at trial. All non-individual (including but not 

limited to corporate) parties must appear at trial through the presence in person of a 

designated representative. Once they have appeared, any representative of a non-individual 

party shall not be replaced or substituted without express leave of Court. 

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