Weisner v. Google LLC
- Alvin Hellerstein
- 1:20-cv-02862
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Weisner v. Google LLC, Judge Hellerstein found Weisner plausibly pleaded infringement of two patents and moved the case toward claim construction.
Sholem Weisner, Google LLC, and Shmuel Nemanov were affected. The ruling allowed Weisner’s infringement allegations concerning the ’905 and ’911 patents to proceed past the pleading stage and set procedures for the next stage of the case.
What happened
In Weisner v. Google LLC, Sholem Weisner sued Google LLC and Shmuel Nemanov for patent infringement. After an earlier dismissal, the Federal Circuit sent part of the case back, involving the ’905 and ’911 patents.
Google renewed its request to dismiss, arguing that Weisner had not plausibly alleged infringement. Judge Hellerstein found that Weisner’s second amended complaint included detailed charts comparing Google’s features with the patent claims and adequately described the alleged infringement.
Judge Alvin Hellerstein terminated the pending motion and set deadlines for the defendants’ answer, the parties’ claim-construction table, and a Markman hearing. Discovery was paused until after the court decided how to interpret the patent claims.
The detailed version
- Weisner v. Google LLC · No. 1:20-cv-02862
- Alvin Hellerstein
- Dec. 13, 2022
Background
This patent-infringement case returned to the Southern District of New York after the Federal Circuit remanded part of it. The court had previously dismissed Weisner’s First Amended Complaint because it did not describe Google’s allegedly infringing features or compare those features with the allegedly infringed patent claims. Weisner then filed a Second Amended Complaint.
On July 28, 2022, the court dismissed the Second Amended Complaint on the separate ground that the asserted subject matter was patent-ineligible. The Federal Circuit remanded the case as to two of the four patents. Google then renewed its motion to dismiss the Second Amended Complaint for failure to plead a plausible infringement claim.
Ruling
The court found that the Second Amended Complaint cured the earlier pleading problems. In particular, claims charts described the Google features allegedly infringing Weisner’s patent claims with sufficient detail. Applying the requirement that a complaint contain enough factual allegations to make relief plausible, the court found that Weisner plausibly alleged infringement of the ’905 and ’911 patents. The Clerk of Court was directed to terminate the open motion.
The ruling addressed whether the complaint adequately stated an infringement claim; it did not decide whether Google actually infringed the patents. The court cancelled the existing schedule and ordered the defendants to file an answer by December 22, 2022.
Next steps ordered by the court
The parties were ordered to meet and prepare a four-column table identifying patent phrases that require interpretation, each side’s proposed interpretation, and a blank column for the court’s decision. The parties had to file the table jointly by February 27, 2023. Judge Hellerstein scheduled a Markman hearing for March 13, 2023, before discovery. The court stated that discovery would not begin until it issued its claim-construction order.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.