Opinion ID: 3012973
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Modification or Vacation of Injunction

Text: Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b) permits the district court to grant relief from a final judgment if the party seeking modification can show fraud, misrepresentation, or “a significant change in either factual conditions or in law” that renders continued operation of the judgment inequitable. Accordingly, we must “focus our inquiry on the circumstances that led to the entry of the injunction and compare them with current circumstances for the 9 purpose of deciding whether continuation of the injunction without the requested modification would be so inequitable that the district court’s refusal to grant the motion to modify is reversible error.” Favia, 7 F.3d at 340. Neo Gen claims it was entitled to modification based on fraud and changed circumstances. First, Neo Gen argues that TeleChem committed a fraud upon the court by knowingly and intentionally failing to disclose the published patent application, and its injunction is barred by the doctrine of unclean hands. See Keystone Driller Co. v. General Excavator Co., 290 U.S. 240, 245 (1933) (party cannot be awarded equitable remedy where it has gained an advantage by fraud or deceit); In re New Valley Corp., 181 F.3d 517, 525 (3d Cir. 1999) (same). However, Neo Gen cites to no evidence which shows that TeleChem’s omission was knowing or intentional, such that the District Court’s implicit conclusion to the contrary would be clear error. Absent such evidence, we cannot conclude that the District Court abused its discretion in rejecting the claim that an injunction was barred by TeleChem’s “unclean hands.” Neo Gen also argues that even if the injunction stands, it must be modified because the non-secret Schena patent material is still encompassed within the language about “pending patents.” Moreover, it argues that TeleChem has not shown any evidence of any microarray technology to be protected beyond what is in the published material, which would mean that TeleChem would be unlikely to prevail on the merits because of changed circumstances. Neo Gen’s first argument is wrong; the injunction prohibits only 10 the utilization of microarray trade secrets, so any material contained in the published patent application is not a trade secret addressed by the injunction. Second, by rejecting Neo Gen’s motion, the court implicitly found that there continued to be some microarray trade secrets that were not published. Neo Gen does not point to any evidence demonstrating that this finding was clear error. 2 Thus, it was not an abuse of discretion for the District Court to refuse to modify the injunction order.