In Re Koninklijke Philips Patent Litigation
- Haywood Gilliam
- 4:18-cv-01885
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 8
In Re Koninklijke Philips Patent Litigation: Judge Gilliam granted Philips and HTC’s motion, dismissing their claims without prejudice while claims involving ASUS continued.
Koninklijke Philips N.V. and U.S. Philips Corporation’s claims against HTC Corp. and HTC America, Inc., and HTC’s claims against Philips, were dismissed without prejudice. The pending claims between Philips and ASUS were not affected.
What happened
In Re Koninklijke Philips Patent Litigation involved patent claims by Koninklijke Philips N.V. and U.S. Philips Corporation against HTC Corp. and HTC America, Inc. Philips and HTC reached a confidential settlement covering all claims between them.
The court granted the parties’ unopposed motion in its entirety. It dismissed Philips’s claims against HTC and HTC’s claims against Philips without prejudice, with each side responsible for its own costs, expenses, and attorneys’ fees. The order did not affect the pending claims between Philips and ASUS.
Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. entered the parties’ dismissal agreement as the court’s order. The court found that ASUS would suffer no legal prejudice because it did not oppose the motion and the motion sought no action concerning the Philips-ASUS claims.
The detailed version
- In Re Koninklijke Philips Patent Litigation · No. 4:18-cv-01885
- Haywood Gilliam
- July 14, 2020
Background
Koninklijke Philips N.V. and U.S. Philips Corporation, collectively called Philips, sued HTC Corp. and HTC America, Inc., collectively called HTC, in a patent-infringement action. The case was transferred from the District of Delaware to the Northern District of California in 2018 and consolidated with related cases. At the time of this motion, HTC and ASUS Computer International and ASUSTeK Computer, Inc., collectively called ASUS, were the remaining defendants.
Philips and HTC entered into a confidential settlement resolving all claims between them. They jointly sought voluntary dismissal of those claims under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a)(2), which allows a court to dismiss claims at a plaintiff’s request after an answer or summary-judgment motion has been filed. The motion did not seek any action concerning the claims still pending between Philips and ASUS. ASUS indicated that it did not oppose the motion.
Court’s Analysis
The court explained that a voluntary dismissal under Rule 41(a)(2) should generally be granted unless a defendant shows plain legal prejudice—harm to a legal interest, claim, or argument. Because ASUS did not oppose the motion and the motion did not affect the Philips-ASUS claims, the court found that ASUS would suffer no legal prejudice.
Ruling
The court granted the motion in its entirety. It entered the parties’ stipulation of dismissal as the court’s order and dismissed all claims asserted by Philips against HTC and by HTC against Philips without prejudice. Each party was required to bear its own costs, expenses, and attorneys’ fees. The order did not dismiss the claims between Philips and ASUS.
Read the full 8-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.