By Memorandum Opinion entered by The Honorable Sherry R. Fallon in Monec Holdings AG v. Motorola Mobility, Inc., et al., Civil Action No. 11-798-LPS-SRF (D.Del., September 5, 2014), the Court granted the motion of defendants HTC Corporation and HTC America, Inc. (collectively, “HTC”) to strike the opening summary judgment and Daubert filings of plaintiff Monec Holding AG (“Monec”).
In support of their motion, HTC asserted that Monec improperly exceeded the page limits for its summary judgment briefing by including factual material, citations and legal analysis in the attached exhibits. Id. at 2. In response, Monec alleged that the exhibit in dispute, a witness Declaration, contained only facts and citations, as opposed to legal argument. Id. at 3.
Upon review, the Court found that the infringement portion of Monec’s opening brief contained no legal analysis and HTC had to refer to the exhibit in dispute in order to respond to Monec’s submissions. Id. Thus, the Court concluded that HTC was prejudiced by Monec’s improper reliance on the exhibit in dispute to convey its legal arguments, because HTC had to respond to the 272 page exhibit within the court’s page limitations on briefs. Id. Accordingly, the Court granted HTC’s motion to strike without prejudice, giving Monec the opportunity to file amended opening briefs and supporting documents within fourteen (14) days of the Court’s Order.
The take away for litigants from this Case is that the Court’s page limitations are real and need to be taken seriously, substantive legal arguments on infringement and other issues have to be made in the brief, and litigants need to be mindful that they are not attempting to use exhibits to the brief in an improper manner to attempt to circumvent applicable page limitations.
A copy of the Memorandum Opinion is attached.